The Five Best Sounds I’ve Ever Heard

Ah, hearing. It's such an underrated sense. Vision and taste are the all-stars of the five senses. Smell and hearing are the second-class citizens. Touch, obviously, is the red-headed stepchild.

Hearing, though, gets a big boost in the rankings when you have a baby. In fact, two of the best five sounds I’ve ever heard have been in the past 12 weeks. What were they? Well, let’s cover all five. And to do that, we’ll start at the top, PB, or, pre-baby:

Sound 1: The first time you hear the ocean. The waves crashing on the rocks. The tide rushing against the sand. The seagulls overhead. Since I was little, I’ve always loved the ocean and everything that comes with it. The first time you hear it is unforgettable. And now, decades later, the sound of it can still bring me back to my childhood.

Sound 2: The first real concert you ever attend. I actually didn’t experience a concert until I was in college and wasn’t sure what to expect the first time I stood wide-eyed in front of a live show. I loved the mood. I loved the crowd. I loved the anticipation. Then Bruce Springsteen made a sound on a New Jersey stage and I was captivated for life. Live music has been a huge part of my life – and our marriage.

Sound 3: The first time you hear “I do.” Speaking of marriage, those two words are pretty damn important. You spend a lot of your life looking for the right person to share everything with and, suddenly, two words stand in between you and forever. I remember nearly everything about our wedding day – the food, the people, the speeches, and the weather. Mostly, though, I remember that moment.

Sound 4: The first time you hear your child cry. After the first time, it gets really old … kidding, kidding. Kind of. But that first piercing yell, which I imagine is usually muffled by screams of maternal pain (it was in our case), lets you know you have a healthy (and loud) little bundle of joy.

Sound 5: The first time you hear your child laugh. This …

Three Cases of the Irrational Dad

No one has ever labeled me as laid-back. Efficient? Sure. Productive? You bet. Always on the go? Check. But never laid-back.

So, it may not surprise you that I'm occasionally a tad nervous, or, perhaps, irrational, when it comes to my daughter, Annabelle.

Now, in my defense, before the last 10 weeks, I knew as much about babies as you know about the mating habits of flamingos. I don't think that makes me a unique male. Most guys (dudes, bros, boys -- whichever you prefer) I know didn't do much babysitting in high school. Instead, we played sports, chased girls, and spit a lot.

Guys, then, are inherently at a disadvantage with this baby stuff. We're starting from square one and we're suddenly the head of a household. (Is there any phrase in the English language that can make you feel older? Excuse me, can I speak to the head of the household?) We're nervous, scared, and anxious because there's this perfect thing that we don't want to mess up in any way. We want our sons and daughters to be absolutely perfect for as long as possible. We want them to be happy, healthy, and quiet. Forever.

And because of that, we're irrational.

More specifically, I'm irrational. Thanks to my lack of baby knowledge and my, um, active personality, Bridget and I have already had a few interesting  (and unnecessary) moments with that screaming gal in the photo. In chronological order, here are the three cases of the irrational dad:

1. After a few weeks of life, Annabelle started to develop a rash on her face and her chest. "Oh, man," I said, when it got particularly bad. "What's wrong with her? Is she okay?"Bridget looked at the rash. "Yes, she's fine," she said. "It's probably just baby acne. Plus, babies get rashes all the time." I shook my head. "No, no, I don't think so," I said. "I think something's wrong. Can you call in the morning?" Bridget, to appease me, called in the morning. "They think she's fine." Two days later, the baby acne disappeared.

2. I was convinced Annabelle was blind. Two weeks ago, I was playing with Annabelle while Bridget made dinner. I was making faces at her and trying to get her to follow my finger. (Babies, I'd read, were supposed to be able to track things at eight weeks.) I moved my hand right. Annabelle stared straight ahead. I moved my hand left. She stared straight ahead. In fact, she was actually looking past me. "Bridget," I yelled. "I think Annabelle might be blind!" Bridget came running in. "What do you mean? Why would you think that?" I showed her Annabelle's poor tracking ability. "I mean, would we know? She had that hearing test, but we don't know anything about her eyes," I said. Bridget assured me everything was fine. A couple days later, we told our pediatrician about my irrational fear. She laughed. Annabelle's eyes are fine.

3. I woke up in a panic at 3 AM last Tuesday. I jumped out of bed, and went over to Annabelle, who was asleep in her Rock 'n Play. I stared at her in fear. She was so quiet, so still. There had to be something wrong. I leaned over and touched her hand. Nothing. I listened to hear breath, and slowly, softly, she exhaled. And then I exhaled. Bridget was awake by this point. Our conversation:
"Hun," she said.
"Yeah, I"m okay," I said. "I was just really nervous. She was just so still."
"Right," Bridget said, "she was sleeping."
"I know," I said. "I just got nervous because the blanket was there."
"Was the blanket near her face?"
"No, it was under her feet … I'm cool. I'll go back to bed now."

This parenting thing gets easier, right?

Why a Crying Baby Is Like a Bad Round of Golf

I’m not a very good golfer. I mean, I’m not awful. Even though I didn’t play a single round this year, I’m fairly certain I could still scramble through 18 holes in about 100 strokes, mixing in the occasional long, crooked drive with a plethora of chunks, mishits, and weak putts.

And every once in a while, something amazing happens on a golf course. Something remarkable and special happens. I hit a fantastic shot.

Have you ever hit a fantastic golf shot? It’s really something. For my money, it’s the best feeling in all of recreational sports. It’s nice to watch a three-pointer swish through a hoop, nice to watch a softball go over a fence, nice to notch a PR in a road race. But a smooth, high arching golf shot that lands like a gum drop on the green? Good Lord, it’s sweet. And it’s often unexpected.

Like most hackers, my swing is terrible. I’m just as likely to top the ball as I am to dig out a five-pound chunk of the Earth every time I use my club. (The result from these two very different actions, interestingly, is quite similar.) I leave my putts short, slice when I try to draw, and draw when I try to slice. I’ve never really learned how to hit a shot out of the sand and I consider it a successful hole when I don’t have to “get creative with that tree to get a bogey here.”

So when that fantastic shot leaves my club, it’s so damn sweet. Once every round or two, I’ll stare down the flagstick from 150 yards and get a feeling like something great is about to happen. The club feels like part of my body as I slowly draw it back and hit the ball squarely. My follow through is perfect, as the ball elevates and hangs in the air. It hangs and hangs, as I watch with a huge smile on my face. Seconds later, the ball drops 10 feet from the hole. I finally exhale, look around, replace my divot, and tip my cap to my playing partners like it’s just another day at the office. (Inside, I’m attempting to quiet the voice telling me to quit my job and try to qualify for the U.S. Open.)

Nice moment, right?

When you’re struggling on the golf course, though, it’s the exact opposite. When you’re having a bad round and hitting everything in the woods, the water, or the sand, life is awful. You feel helpless. You suddenly start thinking about the presentation that’s due on Monday and the argument you just had with your wife. You think about how you should have been a firefighter or a lawyer and you start to notice that your jaw clicks when you open it. In short, everything is lousy.

You might be wondering what all of this has to do with the cute baby at the top of the post. Where’s the connection?

That helpless, lousy feeling hit me the other day. I was in my living room instead of a golf course, and Bridget was in the kitchen making a pie. My arms were filled with my adorable daughter, who refused to stop crying. She wasn’t hungry, didn’t need a diaper change, and didn’t have gas. She wasn’t bored, sad, or hurt either. She just cried. And cried and cried and cried. I tried walking around with her, doing squats with her (she loves that), and bouncing on the ball with her (she loves that, too). Nothing worked. I just let the piercing cries wash over me like a relentless, driving rainstorm.

I felt like I was golfing and hitting ball after ball after ball into the middle of a pond. It was brutal.

Finally, mercifully, she settled down and fell asleep. And then, like that smooth, buttery 8-iron, something happened. The corners of her mouth started to turn, her eyes started to squint, and she smiled. And I smiled. And I realized I’d play 1,000 rounds of terrible golf to see her smile again.

Maternity Leave by the Numbers

Today marked a major maternity leave milestone. Did our darling daughter have some magical developmental breakthrough? Did she start walking or talking way ahead of schedule? No. (Though she is smiling and giggling which is pretty awesome.)

Today, friends, I watered my plants. “Watering the plants” has been on my to-do list since before Annabelle was born. Annabelle is 8 weeks old. I have not been able to get my act together and water these plants until just a few minutes ago. Now, this is not so much a victory for the plants (because, let’s be real, these plants are clearly dead at this point), but a sign that just maybe my life is regaining a bit of normalcy. Perhaps we are turning a corner and I’ll be able to do more things than just feed and change an infant.

You see, the thing I didn’t quite grasp about maternity leave, and about taking care of a tiny human in general, is that keeping said tiny human alive is incredibly time consuming. Yet, at the end of the day, you aren’t quite sure what you did. It isn’t like being at work, when you are constantly checking things off of your to-do list like some sort of corporate ninja.

This has been an adjustment for me. For the first month of Annabelle’s life I basically just fed and changed her and watched an obscene amount of TV. How much? Lets recap:

•  Seasons 2-5 of Fringe 
•  Seasons 1-4 of The Good Wife 
•  Seasons 6-7 of the West Wing 
•  More than a little Gossip Girl 

That is, by a conservative estimate, 214 episodes total. Which results in 160 HOURS of TV. All watched in one month. Before you call the mommy police on me, please know that newborns sleep like 36 hours a day. And Annabelle really preferred to do her sleeping on me. Turns out there are a limited amount of things you can accomplish with a sleeping infant on your chest. So TV watching became my pastime of choice.

Since we are already crunching numbers, let’s look at Annabelle’s life so far. Thanks to this app, we’ve been diligently tracking her every move. This tracking was necessary for the first week or two of life to make sure she was doing ok, but at this point it has just become a sick obsession. Of course, it allows me to look back at the past 8 weeks and realize how I’ve spent my time:

• 35 bottle attempts 
• 392 diaper changes 
• 7,245 minutes of nursing 

And, actually, when you add it all up like this it does seem rather impressive. So what if I didn’t sew her Halloween outfit together from scratch? Or finish decorating her nursery. Or make dinner. Or clean the apartment. Or even get really into knitting.  I kept a baby alive. And maybe, if today is any indication of things to come, moving forward I just might be able to keep a baby AND my plants alive. Fingers crossed.

The Absolute Worst Thing about Having a Baby

There are so many wonderful things about having a baby. Teaching your baby. Hanging out with your baby. Smiling at your baby. (As Bridget and I experienced for the first time this week, your baby smiles back sometimes, too.) Aside from the sleep deprivation and the occasional crying fits (hers not mine), it's pretty much the best thing in the world.

But there's one thing, one stupid orange and black thing, that stinks about having a baby: You're forced to like Halloween.

Look, I hate Halloween. Maybe it's because I think most costumes are ridiculous. Maybe it's because I dealt with the crowds in Salem when I lived there. Or maybe it's because I detest those chewy, synthetic, disgusting candy corns. More than likely, though, it's because Halloween is the dumbest thing ever. And now because I have an adorable daughter who will look cute in any costume in the store, I have to paste a fake, wide smile on my face this October 31.

My history with Halloween, from what I can remember, started when I was around 10. It was really my peak. I dressed up as Mac Tonight, the moon-faced guy from the McDonald's commercials of the 1980s. My mom outdid herself and sewed the costume, adding in cotton where my head wouldn't reach in the moon. I remember parading around our school and everyone laughing at me. It was a good laugh, though, because I won the contest. (I think I won movie tickets or something.)

Fast forward to my senior year of high school. My go-to outfit was a white T-shirt and warm-up pants, so clearly I wasn't going to put much effort into Halloween. And sure enough when the night of October 30 rolled around, my buddy and I grabbed a couple sheets, cut a few holes, made the word "Boo" out of tape, and went to school the next day as "We really couldn't care less" ghosts.

I still liked all the candy at this point, though.

College was more of the same. People were plotting weeks in advance about their ingenious, creative costumes. They made multiple trips to iParty to make sure they had the perfect shade of black or the exact amount of blood. I made sure my Hawaiian shirt was clean and my stupid bucket hat was still in one piece so I could go as "Fun island guy." Aside from the adult beverages, I don't recall much fun.

Since then, it's been one train wreck after another. Caramel apples falling off sticks. Lame parties. Navigating through tens of thousands of drunk college students in Salem. And like most adult males without children, my attempts to engage a costumed youngster in conversation as I handed him or her a treat have been forced and awkward. As I hit my late 20s, I decided to just turn off my lights on Halloween and avoid the whole thing. No tricks. No treats. Boo humbug.

But now, this year, with my little ladybug or pumpkin or bumblebee or walrus or whatever staring up at me, I need to make sure she has fun. Before I know it, she'll be 4 and it'll be princess time for a few years. Then it'll be fairies. Then ballerinas. And then, sometime in the distant future, she's going to come downstairs in a tight-fitting outfit that's supposed to be a nurse, a cop, or a devil. And I'll flip out.

But hey, at least then I'll have permission to hate Halloween again. Until that happens, I'll have a huge smile on my face. Happy freakin' Halloween.

The Photo Shoot I Never Wanted

I hate photo shoots. Wait, no. That’s not right. I loathe photo shoots. I despise them, abhor them, and detest them. I don’t really know why. I never had a traumatic experience or anything. I just think they are cheesy, forced, and well, silly.

So when Bridget presented the idea of having a newborn photo shoot for Annabelle, I reacted the way you’d expect: “Uh-uh. No way. They are so stupid and expensive. We have iPhones with cameras. Those work fine.”

By now, Bridget knows how to pick her spots and get what she wants. I won’t give in all the time (yet), but if she really wants something, she usually gets it. And she really wanted this newborn photo shoot. “Don’t you want these for your daughter? She’ll never be this small again,” Bridget said. “We’ll have these forever.”

“Ugh,” I said, with extra emphasis on the “g.” “Fine.”

And like always — like spending lots of money on vacations, getting a kitchen island, and living in the city — Bridget was absolutely, 100%, no-doubt-about-it right. Again.

I mean, seriously, look at these pictures:

I suppose you probably couldn’t get that same quality with an iPhone.

Fortunately for us, we had an absolutely wonderful photographer. Actually, she was better than that. Christine Maus, the sister of a friend from work, came to our apartment 10 days after Annabelle was born and spent two hours in our apartment. Now you might be saying, “She was related to someone you work with. You have to say she was good.” Wrong. If she wasn’t wonderful at what she does, I would just avoid eye contact with the co-worker for the next few months and we would hide the photos in a dark closet under some old Sports Illustrated magazines.

So why was Christine so good? Was it talent? No. Although she has plenty of that:

Was it the way she created light in our shaded apartment? No. Although she did a great job of that:

Was it the cool bean bag thing and cute wraps she brought for Annabelle? No. Although they were pretty awesome:

So what was it? What set Christine apart? It was her attitude and presence. It was her patience and her kindness. It was the moment she threw her body between Annabelle and Oscar, creating a human shield that saved a lot of tears, screaming, and barking. (In Oscar’s defense, the quickest way to the treat was through his baby sister.)

So, thanks, again, Christine. You created something we’ll cherish for the rest of our lives.

Does this mean I love photo shoots? Not so much. A couple clad in argyle sweaters staring into each other’s eyes in front of a stone wall on a brisk autumn day? Blech. A family in matching white outfits on a sandy beach at sunset? Not my thing. The studio at Sears? Good God. I’d rather drink a smoothie of Oscar treats.

Nope, no more photo shoots for me. At least not until Bridget brings it up again …

Dad's First Feeding

Yelling. Then crying. Then really loud yelling. Then spit up. Then more crying. Then more spit up, more yelling, and lots of tears, in that order. Then more yelling.

In short, chaos. Absolute chaos.

I fed Annabelle for the first time this week. It didn't, you know, go well. In fact, some would call it a disaster, a train wreck, or, in the parlance of our times, a dumpster fire. At least at the beginning.

It all started when I received a text from Bridget around lunchtime: "Guess what? I pumped today, so you can feed her tonight!" I was thrilled. No, elated. I'd read a lot about that first "Dad to baby feeding" and, now, it was my turn. I was going to get to feed my young. But I was also really nervous. I had never fed another human before. Sure, I'd given a date a bite of chocolate cake, but I'd never fed another person an entire meal.

I immediately turned to the most logical place to refresh my knowledge: Google. After getting sidetracked on a video about how to bathe a newborn (Belle hates baths, which is a story for another time), I finally found a decent site that talked about 45-degree angles and "not forcing it." Content with my superficial research (especially the angle thing, which seemed pretty scientific and impressive), I enjoyed the rest of my day at work and some early evening tennis. As I walked home in front of a setting sun at 6:30, I realized I was muttering to myself: You can do this, Mike. You can do this. 

I walked in, grabbed Belle, grabbed the bottle, took off my shirt in preparation for copious amounts of spit and vomit, and put on my game face. You can do this, Mike. I took a comfortable seat on my couch and held Belle at precisely 45.0 degrees. Here's the play-by-play:

Attempt 1: Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! (Baby translation: "Absolutely not. What the hell is this? There is no way I'm feeding this way.")

Okay, okay. She just needs to get adjusted to this, I think to myself. Compose yourself, Mike. You can do this.

Attempt 2: Waaaaaah. Bottle goes in for a second. Waaaaaaaaah! (Baby translation: "Did you not hear me 10 seconds ago? I said no!")

Attempt 3: Waaaaah. Waaaaah. Bottle goes in for a few seconds. Milk comes out! Hooray!  Waaaaaaaah! (Baby translation: "Look, man. You are not my Mom. You'll never be my Mom. Go write a blog post or something.")

"Honey," I say to Bridget. "I don't think this is going very well."

Attempts 4 - 8: A little milk goes in. Waaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! (Baby translation: "No! Give me the real thing!")

I decide to walk around and bounce Belle for a while because that always seems to help her relax. She calms down a bit. Bridget leaves the room because she'd read a baby won't feed when she can smell/sense that her mother is around. It doesn't make a difference. She can easily hear Attempt 9 from the other room.

Attempt 9: Waaaaaah! Waaaaah! Deep breath. WAAAAAAH!

I remove the bottle and look at it -- .25 ounces (maybe) of the 3 ounces are gone. Thirty minutes have gone by. Crap.

Attempt 10: Bridget holds the bottle while I bounce Belle. And ... success! She's sucking and gulping. "Honey," I yell. "You've got it. You're doing ..." Waaaah! Waaaah! Waaaah!

At this point, 40 minutes into the feeding, I'm close to calling it a failure. I'm ready for Bridget to come in with the big guns. (Pun intended. Whatever. I'm tired, so I'll use puns when I want.) And then, suddenly on attempt 11, something clicks. Her eyes soften, her breathing slows, and her lips curl. It's like the moment when a kid understands long division for the first time or a minor leaguer learns how to take an outside curve ball to right field. Success! Just like that, quietly, calmly, Belle grabs hold of my pinkie and guzzles 2.75 ounces of milk in about two minutes.

Bridget snaps the photo above and, out of nowhere, I have one my proudest (and most gratifying) moments thus far as a Dad. (Isn't she adorable?)

Then I realize it's almost time for Belle's weekly bath. Sigh. I think I need a nap ...