MetroDad

Ramble On (musings on music)

"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. Music is the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part"-Nick Hornby

"Life ain't nothing but a good groove.  A good mix tape to put you in the right mood."-The Beastie Boys

I don't know any baby songs.  Not a single one.  Sure, I know the chorus to "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."  And I make up my own sentences in French to the tune of "Frere Jacques."  But really, I hear other parents singing childrens songs to their kids and while they ring slightly familiar, I don't think I know enough of any kids songs to make it through a whole tune (even if I was onstage at our local karaoke dive bar and the words were right in front of me.)  I chalk this disability up to the fact that my parents were immigrants and weren't always around to sing me songs during my childhood. 

But the funny thing is that I sing to the Peanut all the time.  Most of the time, I make up the lyrics, the chorus, and the melody.  But it doesn't matter what the BossLady and I sing to her.  The Peanut loves it.  Any time she hears her parents singing to her, it puts a big smile on her face.  It just goes to show that we're all born with a love for music and that this love is part of what makes us all human. 

As for me?  I've had a long, passionate love affair with music my entire life.  And like most people, I can trace the entire arc of my life through music.  When I was young, I remember listening excitedly as local legends like Afrika Bambatta, Run DMC and LL Cool J announced their arrival on the streets of New York.  During the angst-filled, early-teenage years, I recall being in my room with headphones on and listening to the haunting sounds of the Cure, Morrissey, and Depeche Mode.  In my late teens, I spent a lot of time with friends hitting the local jazz clubs and hearing young talents like Roy Hargrove and Terence Blanchard, guys who seemed not much older than me but who would later go on to reach jazz stardom.  By the time I reached college, I was listening to everything and anything.  My personal soundtrack was a cacophony of music, encompassing everything from world music to techno to hard-core rap.  But through it all, I never forgot my first loves...rock and pop (this might have to do with the fact that when I was 12 years old, the first live concert I went to see was Rush in Madison Square Garden.)

Aside from that first concert at the Garden, I've had a series of unique musical experiences that I'm sure contributed significantly to who I am today.  Living in NYC has afforded me opportunities that were amazingly unique and which I'll treasure forever.  When I was 13, I not only saw the Who live at Shea Stadium but also watched Simon & Garfunkel in Central Park perform in front of 500,000 people.  When I was 18, I smoked a joint with Sting at a friend's apartment as he discussed the artwork of Botero.  I once sat front-row and saw Eric Clapton perform live at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall.  I heard Sophie B. Hawkins sing "Damn. I wish I was your lover" with an acoustic guitar in my friend's office.  I saw Sonic Youth perform in NYU's auditorium, Beck at the top of the World Trade Center, and KRS-One at a local high school.  I've been backstage with Springsteen and the Black Crowes.  And I've seen Prince, the Rolling Stones, U2 and David Bowie live in concert more times than I can even remember.  These are all some of the strongest memories in my life. 

But we all have musical memories, don't we?  I've always believed that there are times in a person's life when, very occasionally, a song or an album can express who you are, perfectly.  Similarly, there are times in one's life when it seems as if the music was perfectly aligned with the times.  These song or album memories can burn in one's mind as strongly as the events that they marked.  Will I ever forget leaving New York and driving cross-country alone to start college in California while listening to U2's Joshua Tree?  Will I ever forget listening to The Grateful Dead playing "Terrapin Station" while taking mushrooms and watching the sun set in Red Rocks Amphiteater?  And though I can't remember any details regarding a break-up with an ex-girlfriend, will I ever forget listening to Sinead's "Nothing Compares 2 U" over and over again?  At this point in my life, the memory of those songs is stronger than the experiences that I connect them with. 

But now that I'm a father, I obviously have much less time to listen to music or keep up with current bands.  Instead of putting on some headphones and listening to music for hours on end, I find that songs have become background music to me.  Or more like a diaper-changing soundtrack.  And for the first time in my life, I have to really struggle to listen to new music.  And it's tough because there's a lot of new music out there that I find myself really liking: Connor Oberst & Bright Eyes, Kanye West, Danger Mouse, Maroon 5, the Killers, and Beanie Siegel. 

As the Peanut gets older, I'm assuming that I'll have even less time to listen to my own music.  And though I'm semi-dreading it, I know that in order to bring more smiles to my daughter's face, I'm going to be spending a lot of time listening to the Wiggles, Ralph's World, Laurie Berkner, or They Might Be Giants.  I can accept this.  Mainly because I'm so infatuated with my daughter that I'll do anything to put a smile on her face.  My new mission in life is to make her life as happy as possible.  But at the same time, I can't help feeling a little sad that music is playing a little smaller role in my life. 

But for now?  Well, if you happen to see a tall Asian guy wearing sunglasses, walking around Tribeca singing Morissey's "suedehead" to a smiling little baby in a stroller...you'll know who it is. 

(p.s. Please feel free to shout out any new musical recommendations you might have.  I'm always on the lookout.  Just bought new releases from Moby and Beck.  Anything else I should get?)

City Mouse or Country Mouse?

I’m back, my friends!  And before I do anything else, I want to kindly thank Poppa Large for covering my back while I was away.  As I fully expected, he did not disappoint.  For a brief time there, I actually got worried that I was going to be the blogging equivalent of Wally Pipp, the starting first baseman for the NY Yankees who, in 1925, sat out a game because of a headache.  A young man named Lou Gehrig started in Pipp’s place that day and went on to play an astounding 2,130 straight games.  Young Gehrig went on to establish a Hall-of-Fame career.  Poor Mr. Pipp never got his old job back.

Anyway, as I get back into the swing of things here, I thought I'd check up and see how some of my fellow parenting bloggers are doing.  Since I've only been gone a week, I figured that everyone would probably be up to the "same old, same old" routine.  Holy shit was I wrong!!!  Seems that in my brief absence, everyone decided to either pack their bags or start looking for new digs!

Jay from ZeroBoss started it all off when he posted that he and the family would be leaving Seattle for Tulsa.  Then, over the course of a few days, the NYC crew seemed to simultaneously start planning a mass exodus;  Paul Conrad of ideashak declared that they were moving from Manhattan to North Carolina: Alice of finslippy announced that she and her husband were contemplating leaving Brooklyn for the suburbs: and finally Laid-Off Dad wrote about his recent struggles and indecision regarding a possible move out of NYC.

Of course, the reasoning for their contemplated moves is pretty easy to understand.  For the sake of their kids, they're all leaving for what they deem to be a better quality of life.  More space.  Fresh air.  And oh yeah...did I mention more space?   

As some of you know, I'm a lifelong New Yorker.  Born and raised in captivity, I can't really fathom living anywhere else (at least not anywhere else in the U.S.)  What would I do if I moved out of NYC? Would I have to mow a lawn?  Get a car?  Wear polo shirts?  Join the local Elks club?  Would I be able to get good sushi?  What about a decent espresso?  Where would I go to listen to live music?  And most importantly, who would cut my hair?

All kidding aside (ok, I'm not REALLY kidding), I truly do understand why people with families would want to move out of Manhattan or any other city to give their children a better life.  But we all define "a better life" differently, don't we?  Nevertheless, moving out to the 'burbs is a dilemma that every city-dwelling parent thinks about.  Strangely enough, for some reason, whenever I start thinking about moving myself,  I'm always reminded of Michael Douglas' speech in "The American President."  Remember it? 

"America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free."

I'll tell you, my friends.  Unless you're the heir to a family fortune or have become independently wealthy, New York can be a tough place to live.  It can kick your ass, knock you in the ribs and spit on you when you're down.  You've got to really, really want it.  But if you tough it out, the rewards are unlimited.  And for the sake of both myself and my daughter, BossLady and I are going to tough it out.   

There are millions of reasons why NYC is a great place to live and I'm not going to dwell on all of them here. For me, the overriding reason to live and raise my daughter here is the sheer diversity of people.  I'm no Utopian idealist, people.  I like to believe that I've got both feet firmly planted in reality.  And the fact of the matter is I'm a big believer that proximity breeds understanding and that people fear that which they do not know.  I want the Peanut to see people who are different colors, who speak different languages, who have different sexual preferences and who come from different socio-economic backgrounds.  It's important for me to have her understand and respect the different walks of life that people come from.  I believe that living in this cauldron of diversity has had a great influence on my development as a person.  And I want my daughter to grow up amongst all this diversity so she can witness the ways that we, as a people, can be so different...but yet so similar. 

A few years down the road, I may change my mind.  But for now, we're sticking it out here.  I love the invigorating nature of the city.  I love the daily encounters with people in the street.  I love taking the Peanut to Central Park in the morning, the Metropolitan Museum in the afternoon and Chinatown for dinner.  Am I really going to give all this up for a little more space?  Maybe.  But not likely.

After all, who would cut my hair? 

( I'm curious to hear what all of you think about city vs. suburban living.  What determined your choices?  Did you have any regrets?  Would you do it again?  An inquiring mind wants to know.)
 

Adieu

MetroDad should be returning very soon to reclaim his blog. I've had fun the past few days and more importantly, I've learned a great deal about parenthood...which should only elevate my anxiety level, but hey, that's cool too.

I said I wasn't going to daddy-blog full-time and I still have my misgivings but given everyone's encouragement, I might as well see how it goes.

Therefore, you can catch the further adventures of Poppa Large at...

poppalarge.blogspot.com.

Thanks again to everyone for your kind words.

Sincerely,

P.L.

P.S. I leave you with one last question that's been on my mind...

So is this Baby Einstein shit for real or what? As I noted early on, I think most of the parenting industry is one big scam, bent on emptying our wallets by preying on our anxieties as new parents. To me, the hype around Baby Einstein just seems to be part of that machine. Best believe - if the actual Austrian patent clerk were alive today, I don't think he'd take kindly to his namesake being jacked to sell DVDs of rotating geometric shapes scored by classical music.

I actually have some Baby Einsten stuff (my sister got it for our baby shower), including the activity pad and weirdly phallic banana toy that you can peel to reveal a happy face inside (Freudian-types, feel free to muse on that). And believe me - I'm not above finding ways to distract L as a way to get some time to myself, but what makes Baby Einstein (or any similar kind of video) any different from seating infants in front of MTV for an hour? Personally, I'd probably like the music better. Is Baby Einstein a better alternative to mindless television?

Not to sound old school, but I'd think if I really wanted to raise a smarter kid, the most powerful tool I could get her would be...a library card.

Ok, debate on!

Who's Looking Out For Mr. Mom?

Since my time substituting for MetroDad is quickly coming to an end, I'm going to be completely selfish and address an issue  I could genuinely use some insightful feedback on.

Sam's going back to work in two weeks and since she's the gainfully employed one of our pair, I'm designated Mr. Mom for lil' L. I've approached this fact with cheerful denial, i.e. "Oh, I'm sure it won't be too bad, right?" but when I seriously think about it, it's a daunting reality. It's been a luxury for both Sam and I to be home for L's first two months since we could always bail the other out when necessary. The times when I've had to leave the house for my work needs, Sam's mom has usually rolled through to help.

When I take over, it's not like it's going to be me, 5 days a week, alone...Sam can work from home at least once a week and her mom will still probably come by once a week too, to help. But frankly, I don't know what the hell I'm getting myself in for.

I'm fully aware that millions of moms work this grind out every single day. However, in all fairness, there are a gazillion resources designed to help at-home moms. All the books we have on parenting presume Dad goes back to work and if anyone stays at home, it's mom. Not helpful for me! Moreover, support and activity groups out there cater to at-home moms too. I tried to see if the big, local mom's group accepted Dads - they don't.

Mind you, I'm not bitter at this lack of parity. The % of at-home dads is, I presume, tiny compared to moms, but it makes me feel intimidated that I'm going to have to figure out how to make this work based on little more than my own wits and patience - both of which I'm in short supply of right now. Sam and I have talked about getting childcare - a part-time nanny for example - to help balance the load and while I'm not adverse to this, I still feel like I should try to do this on my own, just to see if it's manageable.

I'm wondering if there are any current or former Mr. Moms out there - and if so - what kind of insights you can lend to a soon-to-be member of that clique. Likewise, I'd love to hear from at-home moms too about what the experience is like: do you still have time to do your own things? How resentful - if at all - were you? Did you feel socially isolated from other people, trapped in your own house? Etc.

Poppa Large thanks you in advance.

Kickin' Flavor

From as far as I can tell, L won't be on the full-range of adult solid foods for around a year or so but this hasn't stopped me from being excited at the prospect of introducing her to all kinds of yummy consumables down the road. I've already experimented a bit by giving her small tastes of things other than mom's milk, i.e. a lick from a spoon which had been used to eat cantoloupe, a lick of Fuji apple, a dibby dab of ice cream, etc. I also tried a little chocolate, assuming she would have inherited mommy's chocolate obsessions but I don't think little L is ready for 73% cacao yet.

Ultimately, who knows what kind of food L will or won't like but like most, I'm hoping she'll have a generous and adventerous palette. For me, food was one of the few pure pleasures from my childhood that I don't attribute to nostalgia (like other memories) - there's something so sensuous about food that I never consciously recognized as a child but looking back now, I think the reason I can remember certain experiences with food so intensely (whereas, I've forgotten everything else) has much to do with the ways in which a great meal - even for a child - can light up your senses like few other things available to someone under the age of consent.

My Top Three Foods I Want to Introduce L To:

1) Fruit.
Neither Sam or I are religious people and my opinions on God range somewhere between atheism and agnosticism but if I were to believe in some proof of a Higher Power at work in the world, I'd point to fruit as my evidence. I know there are evolutionary reasons why fruit tastes good - you want animals to eat it, thereby helping to spread the seeds through their scat, blah blah blah. I mean, I'm sure the botanists are right and all, but fuck it: in my perspective, only some omnipotent, omniscient Being would have come up with something as incredible as a watermelon. Or a ripe pear. Or a bowl of sweet strawberries. It's no wonder that so many fruits are equated with aphrodisiacs - there are few other foods I can think of that offer such intense and powerful feelings of pleasure when you bite into them.

Like...a handful of seedless red flame grapes, chilled, on a summer day? That's like a "thank you" gift from Nature that we probably don't even deserve. I can't wait to watch L bite into a ripe strawberry and watch her reaction. Damn, I'm making myself hungry right now, writing this.

2. Pizza.

In Jeffrey Steingarten's book, The Man Who Ate Everything, he writes about "umami", the so-called fifth taste (alongside sweet, salty, sour, and bitter). It's a little hard to describe umami since it's not a combination of other tastes, but rather its own taste (I mean, try describing what sweet tastes like). It can be translated as "deliciousness" and it's supposed to convey a sense of well-being and satisfaction.

Japanese culinary scientists who originally named umami have found that it exists in certain kinds of foods and combinations of food. For example, kelp imparts a good deal of umami, which explains why it's such a staple of Japanese soup bases. Shocked as many will be to hear this, but MSG - unfairly demonized - is  to umami what salt is to saltiness. Beef imparts umami as well. And two great sources of umami that we find combined often are cheese and tomatoes.

At least, this is the argument that Steingarden puts forward as to why we like pizza so much and while I hardly need a reason to justify why people like pizza, at least it's nice to know there might be a scientific reason behind it.

Pizza was the first non-dessert "treat" I can remember my parents offering me...it was this pizzaeria outside of Boston (we lived in Burlington for a spell) and all I remember is that their logo used a barbershop spiral and that they would serve their pizzas in between two paper plates, pressed together to form a UFO shape. Like I said, it's strange what you remember from your childhood and I remember the UFO plates because I associated it with this incredible new food.

Remember pizza = umami = mmmmmm...goood.

3. Ice Cream

Greatest. Thing. Ever. If you challenged me to either give up ice cream or sex, I might actually have to go with sex right now (like most new parents, we have ice cream a lot. The other thing? Not so much).

It's a bit strange but for some reason, I associate ice cream with the privileges of adulthood. To explain: when I was young, enjoying ice cream was only possible with the permission of my parents...they had to take me to the parlour, or buy some to take home. But it was a "special" food - not something I could just eat on a whim.

Now that I'm older, I can go out and have ice cream anytime I want to and honestly...there's a still little thrill in realizing that I don't need anyone's permission now. I guess it's a strange marker for passage into adulthood but then again, being able to buy a scoop of mint chip in a sugar cone beats killing a bear or having my privates pierced.

(Honorable mention: sushi. No kid of mine is going to blanch at the idea of eating raw fish, especially when they're half Japanese.)

Questions for the MetroDad crowd:
1) What foods did you look forward to introducing to your kids, and why?
2) What foods do your kids enjoy the most?

A Moment of Rest

Nothing too heady today. L has both Sam and I exhausted. As BossLady predicted, at six weeks, L has found creative new ways of being fussy. We're rather nervous since we're about to take L on her first out-of-town trip this week, to visit family down in L.A. Usually, driving with L is a breeze because she tends to fall asleep when we're moving. Lately though, it's been like that movie Speed - if the car falls under a certain speed, L wakes up and her internal baby bomb goes off. Freeway driving will probably be better but stop and go traffic is a nightmare since we can't get her to sleep for more than a few blocks until we hit a red light or stopped traffic.

What's funny is that whenever we visit my in-laws, they remark how it's strange to them that we seem to hold L a lot. Back in their day, they were down with that ole "let them cry it out" approach, something I think my parents adopted too. This, of course, explains all my abandonment issues (at least my therapist seems to think so).

Friends of mine, who have a baby girl about half a year older than L, have recently gotten her to go to sleep by putting her on a schedule and just laying her down to bed the same time every night. If she cries a bit, they leave her be - whether for five or fifteen minutes - until she cries it out and then falls asleep. I respect their choices as parents but personally, right now, I have a hard time picturing Sam and I adopting the same approach. As much as we'd like for her to get onto a more regular schedule, I guess we have the blind hope that this will be something she'll just drift into (I'm a firm believer in the "blind hope" approach to parenthood. Until of course, such a time when it might blow up in my face.) In the meantime though, L cries, we pick her up, rock her a bit, sling her in the "koala hold", take her out for a walk. Exhaust ourselves. Repeat cycle. But the alternative? Listening to her wail for a quarter hour? Not. Feeling. That.

I'd be curious to hear how more seasoned parents handled all the fussy times during your kids' infancy?

Mammary Madness

*Metrodad is gone until next week. I'll be your substitute teacher blogger in the meantime: Poppa Large, big dad on the West Coast

Remember how I warned all ya'll that so much of the advice we're given for parenthood runs counter to CFS (aka Common Fucking Sense)? Nowhere is this more apparent than in the furor around breastfeeding.

This is far, far, far from a new topic - in fact, Metrodad already touched on this in a previous entry but it seemed as if he and BossLady had a far easier time adjusting to the reality of breastfeeding than what Sam and I have gone through (ok, really Sam since technically, my breasts don't lactate). More to the point, the pressures that exist for newborn mothers around breastfeeding are a classic example of how good intentions destroys CFS and creates neurotic wrecks in the process.

Call 'em the La Leche Legion, the Boobie Brigade, Titty Tyrants or just plain Breast Feeding Fascists (BFF - yes, I like acronyms) but the pro-breastfeeding lobby in America is not to be fucked with. In all the books we got prior to L's birth, breastfeeding is talked up with such passion that new moms who dare to consider bottle-feeding formula come off seeming like their feeding their kids broken glass.

The irony here is that part of why BFFs are so insistent on breastfeeding is precisely because the pro-formula lobby, up until the last 10-15 years or so, had ruled the day in what seems to me to be a classic example of a loss of CFS as well.After all, why in the world would anyone encourage moms NOT to breastfeed and use formula instead if the human female body has a whole goddamn biological sub-system specifically built for the task?

What, you think evolution created mammary glands just to give straight men something to stare at? Like breasts are optional equipment on your body that you can choose to disregard just because science thinks it's improved on the product? If your body went through all the trouble to create breasts that actually lactate (a rather remarkable thing, in and of itself), you'd think this was Nature's way of telling you to use what you got rather than cracking open another Similac can.

I want to be careful here not to diss formula since, as MD points out, most people in our generation of now 30-year olds were probably formula-fed and we didn't turn out bad because of it (well, except for that weird rash I still have...oh, never mind). However, I can appreciate that BFFs are trying to counter the last few generations of pro-formula attitudes and get baby's back on the breast because it's better for them. I'm not mad at that.

The problem is that as a necessary condition of being breast-friendly, there's a subtle demonization for formula and bottle-feeding that goes with it. It's not in-your-face, but it's easy enough to read between the lines in all the new parenting books that are out there, as well as the attitude of lactation consultants who will come visit you the first few days post-partum. No one will say, "don't give your baby a bottle of formula" but for PIPs (remember: paranoid, inexperienced parents), we excel at building mountains from molehills so we blow everything out of proportion.

For Sam and I, we had a terrible experience with this. She was able to breastfeed right after L was born and for the first day or so, everything seemed fine. Sam was producing colostrum, that early breastmilk that's apparently the best-thing-ever for newborns and L seemed happy enough with it. But by day 3, L seemed to be getting really fussy and nothing we could do - feeding her, swaddling her, rocking her - seemed to do much good for more than a few minutes. It was really wearing Sam and I down, especially as new parents who hadn't been sleeping at all the previous three days. Most of all, we just couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on. Babies, in theory, are supposed to sleep 90% of the time when they're first born but L was fussing what felt like half the day.

At the time, my mom was visiting and she basically spent 5 minutes with L and declared, "she's hungry" like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Now - I have some serious Mom issues and therefore, I have gotten into the habit of disbelieving any advice that comes out of her mouth so in this case, I just tuned her out.

But the truth was - L was hungry because Sam's milk hadn't come in yet. This isn't unusual at all - it's not like all women give birth and then start churning out more milk than a dairy farm. It can take days for production to match demand, let alone for mom/baby to master the art of latching. However, Sam was so insistent that we only breastfeed that everytime anyone (including myself) quietly suggested that we might want to consider using some of the formula we brought home with us, she became quickly defensive and despondant, as if those little Similac bottles were mocking her deficiencies as a mom.Clearly, this was partially Sam's neuroses as a PIP at work but it was also heavily influenced by the success that BFFs have wrought on new moms everywhere. The bottle is treated with a quiet disdain and it absolutely influenced Sam and my behavior the first month of parenthood.

What we ended up doing that entire day was starving L unnecessarily. She was nursing at the breast but wasn't actually getting anything out of it and it's no wonder she was so fussy that whole day. By the time we met with a lactation consultant the next day, she assured us that it was fine to formula-feed L as a supplement and for us to not stress about it. Upon which, fully fed, L actually, you know, SLEPT and Sam and I felt a great weight lifted from upon our shoulders. I cannot adequately describe this but I had never felt so relieved in my life.

It also could have been worse. When I started mentioning this episode to other friends, I realized how incredibly common it was. Clearly, Sam and I weren't the only stupid morons out there, caught up in BFF. One friend told me that his cousin had done the same thing, only that their baby had to be taken to the hospital for dehydration. Whoa! Luckily, L was spared a trip to the ER but for days after, Sam and I were convinced we had indelibly scarred her for life by starving her for the day. No doubt, this will emerge as a subconscious trauma for L when she starts going to therapy in 2027.

What's particularly crazy about all this is that all we really needed to hear was for a book or person to just tell us, "breastfeeding is hard and you'll be confronted with challenges with it. Don't feel bad using formula to help get you by." I wonder if BFFs are so worried that parents might abandon breastfeeding altogether if they're not militant about it, but very few of them are ever real with you about the reality that, for some women, milk production can be a challenge and there's nothing you can do about it, despite better intentions.

Ironically, when I suggested Sam attend a breastfeeding support group at our delivery hospital, this ended up making things worse since Sam felt like she was in a room filled with mothers lactating like friggin' cattle - pumping out six ounces as if were no big deal - while she was having trouble even eeking out a third of that.

What's telling in all this is that the one authority figure around you who's fine with formula is usually your pediatrician. The baby's health and well-being, after all, is their first priority and I think it's telling that doctors don't seem, at all, bothered with the idea that a baby might be both breast and formula-fed so long as the operative word here is "fed." Makes you wonder how the BFFs ever became as powerful as they are.

By the way, if you really want to see people get downright nasty with one another about this whole debate, try reading the Craigslist forums on parenting. People who say the Bay Area is filled with congenial, laid back folk are clearly not appreciating that we have assholes here too.

As a postscript, now that we're about six weeks into parenthood, breastfeeding has become much easier than it initially was. Sam's still not producing enough breastmilk for us to start making brie from the excess or anything but she is making enough to keep L satiated plus a few ounces every day to store in the fridge for the late-night feedings I usually take care of.

Just remember though - if your baby is hungry and you're not producing enough milk, use CFS: give 'em the bottle to help fill in the gaps. It's absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, especially once your baby decides to stop screaming on you for starving him/her.

*I'll try to knock out at least one post over the weekend. Thanks for everyone's kind words thus far. As to whether or not I'll be starting my own daddy-blog...the answer is likely no. I just don't have the creative power to be as consistently interesting and on-point as MetroDad and other folks like that. Appreciate the encouragement though but I already run two blogs which is two too many.

Sex and Salad

*Metrodad is on hiatus for the week. I, Poppa Large (big dad on the West Coast), am filling in for the time being. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I can't really speak for my partner Samantha (but I will anyways) about what pregnancy must be like, but based on what I observed, there seemed to be some distinct phases to her experience.

Initial Discovery aka "Holy shit, we're pregnant."
Typical comments: "How the hell did this happen?" "Oh wait, maybe this has to do with me going off the pill last month." "Did I forget to tell you that?" "Oops."

 

First Trimester aka "I still can't believe we're pregnant."
Typical comments: "This is so crazy." "Are we really ready to do this?" "What do you mean I can't eat soft cheese/sushi/raw shellfish or drink wine?"

 

Second Trimester (early) aka Starting to Show
Typical comments: "Wow, I have a baby inside of me." "I hope people don't think I'm getting fat." "By the way, your mom called, she wants to know when we're getting married."

 

Second Trimester (late) aka Golden Days
Typical comments: "This is really amazing." "She's kicking so hard - she's doing her little fan dance today." "By the way, your dad called, he wants to know when we're getting married."

 

Third Trimester aka Ok, Show's Over
Typical Comments: "I hate wearing jeans with an elastic band - I'm not ready to wear 'mom' jeans!" "This was fun while it lasted but it better be over soon." 

...and then comes the dreaded...

 

Post-mester aka Past Delivery Date
Typical Comments: "How come she won't come out?" "Am I going to be pregnant forever?" "I'm giving her one more day than I'm yanking her out myself."

Sam was actually quite well-mannered through most of the pregnancy - until the 36th week. Then, she started to be convinced that L was no longer merely kicking, but had apparently smuggled a small shank into the womb and was now stabbing Sam in the cervix with it.

We went to our midwife but he seemed convinced that L would be out any day now and that there was no reason to induce contractions through artificial means. Then he gave us the advice I knew was likely to come: "have you two tried sex?"

For those who didn't know (or who never watched the penultimate season of Friends(1), there's some kind of hormone inside semen that can help initiate contractions. However, like getting pregnant itself, it helps to be able to...um...deliver as much of the hormone as possible, which, in our case, meant trying to have sex three times a day.

Don't get me wrong. I love sex with Sam (that's what got us into this situation to begin with). Moreover, I found Sam to be incredibly beautiful throughout the pregnancy, even when she had body issues with her transforming figure. However, sex during the last trimester introduced certain - shall we say - challenges that conflicted with my normal enjoyment of lovemaking.

I won't get into all the details but part of it was that sex was now more physically awkward for obvious reasons. Certain positions just didn't work at all and more to the point, Sam was more sensitive (in a bad way) and the fear of potential pain doesn't do much to spice up the mood.

There's also the issue of the baby and the fact that I'm hyper-aware of the fact that L is basically, you know, RIGHT DOWN THERE. It didn't help that prior to suggesting we rut like rabbit, our midwife also told us, "your baby has already dropped into the pelvic region. In fact, if you stick a finger inside, you can feel her head." What I translated that to mean was: "When making love to Sam, I'll practically be poking our daughter in her head with my penis."

It just seemed so...disrespectful. However, Sam couldn't have been happier since she had been craving sex for weeks. The fact that sex could now be tasked with getting labor going only made it even more desirable. She was practically demanding "injections" as much as possible.

Now...like most men, I've had my bouts of performance anxiety in the sack but suddenly, sex on demand, three times a day, with a 9-month old pregnant woman, was like psychological anti-Viagra for me. I was anxious, frustrated, and resentful, none of which are particularly helpful in encouraging climax. It got to the point where it was easier for me to "self-negotiate" and only insert to "complete." Believe me, this did not rank among my fonder masturbatory moments but much to my surprise, Sam was very appreciative of my willingness to make the effort, regardless of what it took.

The problem was - all this effort was seemingly for naught. Labor still seemed like a far away fantasy despite our best efforts otherwise. That's when the salad came in.

Sam's sister had heard of this "labor-inducing salad" sold at Caioti Pizza Cafe in Los Angeles. It's not so much the salad that is purported to work the magic but rather, the salad dressing, a basil vinaigrette. As urban lore goes, women who eat a  salad with this dressing will go into labor within a couple of days. Sam's sis sent us a bottle of this stuff. Did it work?

Let's put this way: on the sixth day after our original delivery date, we saw our midwife again. This time, he decided to help the process along by detaching a slight patch of the birth sac from the uterus. That tear also encourages the production of prostaglandin, the same hormone found in sperm to help induce contractions.

Then we went home and I provided my own prostaglandin donation (taking one for the team) and then Sam ate the labor salad. Within six hours, she went into early labor and by the next day, L was here.

Was it the sex? The salad? The midwife? Just L's time to arrive? Ah, the unanswerable mysteries of life.

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(1) I never liked Friends much but I would watch it on occasion, including the episode where Rachel, pregnant with Ross' love child, is tired of carrying the baby around and tries to seduce Ross into sleeping with her as a way to induce labor. I cannot express the shock I felt when the OB gave us similar advice since it now meant I actually had something in my actual life that related to an episode of Friends. Oh, the horror. The horror.

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From the Metrodad Poppa Large Mailbag...

"out of curiosity, and as 1/2 of a couple who is considering having children, what would you say is the hardest part?" - Kristin

In all seriousness, the hardest part is the emotional adjustment to realizing that you are now completely responsible for the life of this small creature who depends on you for their very existence and survival. Maybe it's because I never grew up with pets (Chinese moms ain't feeling anything that might lower property value) but this was an utterly new thing to adjust to.

I remember, in the first week after L was born, I was away from home for the afternoon and with the distance to be able to look at parenthood while not being smack in the middle of it, I suddenly understood why some men leave their families. No joke - that feeling of responsibility can be suffocating at times and while I adore my daughter and I would never, ever abandon her, I understood the *impulse* to want to be freed of that responsibility.

Intimately related to that is just the stress in trying to take care of this person who can only communicate with you by crying and screaming. To a newborn parent, this translates into an unending lament of "you're not doing it right! Wah! Wah!" As any mom or dad will tell you, you may be able to tune out other baby's wails, but your own baby's cries are like plunging knives into your heart. You feel so inadequate, especially when they don't stop crying despite your best efforts.

But after a few weeks, you realize, you know, it's hard, but you'll love it. ;)

The Lessons

*Metrodad is out for a spell so you'll have to wait a week to pick up the further adventures of Peanut and BossLady. MD was kind (and naively trusting enough) to let me be his sub during this time. Call me Poppa Large - big dad on the West Coast.

My vitals: Like MD, I'm Asian as well (Asian dads unite!), of Chinese extraction. My partner, "Samantha" aka "Sam" is also Asian (but not Chinese), thereby making our daughter, "L" a mixed-intra-Asian baby (now six weeks old), and therefore, of the cutest genetic stock possible. At least we think so.

MD has weeks upon weeks of parental lead time over me and indeed, reading his blog prepared us for the wild and wonderful world of things such as TAEs. However, unlike MD's bright and smiling perspective on fatherhood, Poppa Large is more of the "parenthood is kicking our goddamn ass" variety.

I'll be upfront - I'm bitter at all my friends with kids who didn't adequately warn me or Sam about how hard parenthood would be. We always got the, "oh yeah, it's hard but you'll love it" line, which is usually said with the air of casualness one might apply to say, French cooking. We soon learned however - raising a newborn was not quite like making coq a vin, though in both cases, copious amounts of wine can help make the process go better.

It's my theory that newborns give off a slow-acting phermone that corrodes the part of the brain that normally stores traumatic memories such as labor and/or new parenthood. As a result, people quickly forget the difficulty of it all and are pre-programmed to tell other prospective parents that, "oh yeah, it's hard but you'll love it." It's designed to ensure the future of the species because frankly, if the truth came out, the rate of human reproduction could plummet to extinction-level event status.

In dwelling with my innumerable thoughts about parenthood, especially for first timers like Sam and I, it quickly dawned on me that there are at least three important lessons all prospective and new parents should learn. They are:

LESSON ONE: Every parent thinks they're an expert on parenting.

It doesn't matter if they have a two day old newborn or enough progeny to field a baseball team - parents think they know everyting about parenting simply because they've gone through it.

On one hand, I can appreciate where this logic originates from. Having a kid is a pretty big friggin' deal and like living through war, a serious illness or a visit from the in-laws, once you've survived the experience, it's impossible not to feel like you've gained some Important Insight. However, just beacuse you know how to change the oil in your car and replace a flat tire doesn't make you a mechanic. Flying on a plane doesn't make you a capable pilot.

Yet, ask any parent about "the best [fill in baby-related item]" and suddenly, people turn into Consumer Reports. Ask them their philosophy on parenting and they speak with the authority of Dr. Sears/Spock/Dre, et. al. In other words, parenthood turns formerly humble and unassuming people and instantly transforms them into mildly pretentious know-it-alls. (Like me).

LESSON TWO: Avoid all advice other parents give you. Including mine.*

*most of it anyways

LESSON THREE: If you're desparate enough to take any of the advice thrown at you (and believe me, you'll be desparate enough), whatever you do, DO NOT disregard CFS.

CFS = Common Fucking Sense.

Most of us in America didn't grow up in social environments where child-rearing was a communal project. If you're lucky, maybe you had much younger siblings that you remembered helping to take care of, but for many others, parenthood is terra incognito. This is why the baby advice industry is a multi-billion dollar industry: it's all designed to play on the anxieties of Paranoid, Inexperienced Parents (PIPs) who are convinced that unless they buy the right videos, books, toys, clothes, and sippy cups, their children are doomed to end up as teenage hustlers with a heroin habit or even worse: Republican.

Most new parents really only need a modicrum of basic parenting lessons, i.e. changing a soiled diaper = good. Asbestos teddy bears = bad.) The rest you can figure out with a healthy dose of CFS. However, most new PIPs are so anxious about doing something wrong, they turn off their CFS and instead, try to follow through on well-intentioned advice that leads them down the short road to hell.

Case in point: when Samantha and I gave birth to L, one of the nurses we saw in the first two days told us, "oh, make sure you burp her for at least 15-20 minutes to get all the gas out."

Think about that: do burping a baby for TWENTY MINUTES after each feeding make CFS?

No. Hell. No.

Burping is designed to get any gas bubbles out of the baby's system right after feeding and especially for newborns, burping helps them go to sleep since they're more comfortable once they've cleared an offending belch/fart out of their system. However, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't feel very drowsy if I had someone 20x my size whacking me on the back for TWENTY MINUTES.

But sure enough, as a pair of PIPs, we trotted home with L and after every feeding, we'd start playing Whack-a-Mole on her back as if we had a roll of quarters to burn Sam would actually get angry with me if I only burped L for, say, five minutes. She'd say, "you need to do it for at least another ten minutes!" with a tone of such disapproval, you'd think I had been teaching L how to freebase cocaine.

Thank god another health professional told us, a few days later, that the initial advice we were given was ridiculous. Now, we burp for, at most, a few minutes and L seems none the worse for it.

Believe me, the opportunities to throw CFS out the window are vast and numerous, especially when you've read the umpteenth book on parenting (that, of course, your friends and family all bought you) or spoken to yet another nurse or doctor giving you contradictory advice. It's a wonder that PIPs aren't all on Paxil during the first month.

Just remember: parenthood - like pimpin' - ain't easy. If you're a PIP try to keep your wits about you as much as possible and never lose sight of CFS. And stop taking advice from other parents.

Including me.

Mystery Guest Blogger

MetroDad will be out of town for awhile on business. And since nature abhors a vacuum, I've decided to enlist a guest blogger, Poppa Large, to cover for me while I'm away. Poppa Large is a brand-new father with plenty of hilarious thoughts on pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. And equally important, he's a fantastic writer with an excellent command of language (what? you think I would leave the keys to the car with someone who dangled his participles?)

Anyway...though Poppa Large and I have never formally met, he sent me several e-mails when he found out that his wife was pregnant and we subsequently started up a friendly correspondence. Unlike most men who find my site when their wives become pregnant (by googling "giant pregnancy boobs," "crazy hormonal wife," or "emotional rollercoaster ride"), Poppa Large seemed to actually believe that I had some real parenting advice to offer. HA! Being a relatively new father, I truly don't consider myself an expert in dispensing parenting advice. But since the Peanut was born several months before Poppa Large's own daughter, I can only equate our relationship as being similar to the one where a guy is walking in the forest, falls into a foxhole and yells upwards into the sky, "Watch your step, fellas! I never saw that one coming!"

So, without further ado, please give a warm welcome to Poppa Large!