Moving on

It's been tough to get going with writing since my dad died. I really wanted life to just.. stop. During the window of time between my father passing away and his funeral, I tried taking it easy. After one day of moping around the house while taking care of Cleo, I realized that this really can't be the case. We're just not designed to not do anything.

So it was that when H got the invite to have Cleo involved with a photo shoot for a friend, I agreed.

So the campaign is for the Nurse Midwives Oregon Affiliate about how one in five babies is delivered by a midwife. A nice, awareness raising campaign. Seven of us were asked to show up with our babies dressed in white onsies. Five babies at a time would get pictures with one wearing a colored onesie (hence the one in five)

I was, once again, the only unaccompanied male (one couple was there, the rest were moms). It might just be that I'm numb from everything that has happened recently, but I think I'm finally just used to being the guy with the baby because it hardly even phased me.

If you were to describe a group baby photo shoot as the equivalent of trying to get glamor shots out of a small family of cats, I would have to correct you, but only to add in the phrase "unmedicated bipolar cats." Sitting five babies down at a time and expecting anything except chaos is flat out crazy. Kids would cry, poke their neighbor baby in the eye on accident, or fall asleep. One poor kid was smiling and doing an amazing job, truly A+ material and was well on her way to being the star of the shoot, when BAM! Faceplant, bloody lip, and inconsolable. By the end of the photo shoot, we couldn't get five kids down at the same time without one crying.

For me, it was nice to know that I don't have any pagent mom in me. I was a bit worried about this, that I would get all competetive and go all "Toddlers in Tiaras mom" on the set. Not the case though. I'd set Cleo down when asked, but if Cleo didn't want to be set down, then it didn't even cross my mind to make her do it and she was back up in my arms.

What was most fun for me was just seeing Cleo around a bunch of kids her age. They really are developing personalities now! Some were laid back, some were interactive with the photographers, some were very parent focused. It was neat to see Cleo in the midst of all of this. At multiple points when set down amongst all of them, she sat quietly, observant, an analytical look on her face, as if participating in all of this wasn't nearly as important as understanding it. Maybe she wasn't the star and maybe she won't make the final cut, but my only thought during these times was "Fuck yeah. That's my girl."

Darkest Tuesday

When  I started this blog, I knew I was having a kid and I thought that this year would be a big deal. Sadly, I really had no idea how life changing this year would be...

Last Tuesday started as just a regular day with Cleo when I got a call from my stepmother Alison who informed me that my father was in the hospital. This wasn't unexpected. My father had Idiopathic Pulminary Fibrosis (IPF), a disease that slowly turns the lungs into scar tissue. It's terminal, but life expectancy average is between 3-5 years after diagnosis and my father had only been diagnosed a year ago.

What I and almost everyone had assumed is that he had gotten a cold. My father's lung capacity was so poor that a cold or a bronchial infection would likely result in needing hospital treatment. He had been housebound for the past 3 months in an attempt to avoid exposure to potential viruses. This was hard for him since my father was an active man, always puttering around, working on some project, often his car but just as likely doing some intense home improvement task. These were off limits now. When he was not sitting in a chair on oxygen, he was able to do some dishes... maybe some light ironing and clothes folding, but not much more. He had confided in me a few weeks previous that he hated this existence, but I simply encouraged him to wait for spring when things would be better.

Due to the hospitalization, Alison told me that the trip to Seaside they were taking was postponed and they would not be doing breakfast this Sunday with me and my family. I made plans to go see them next week.

Then came the call on Wednesday. My father continued to get worse quickly and was now in the ICU. We later learned that my father did not just have IPF, he also had a condition called Wegener's Granulomatosis. It had been undiagnosed since it also affects the lungs and all attention was focused on IPF, allowing it to slip under the radar. He was in renal failure and his lungs were getting worse quickly. They said the Wegener's could be reversed, but when Alison told me that my father was going to be put on life support, we blazed out of Portland just in case. I loaded a bunch of movies on my iPad for him to watch while in the hospital. We saw him Wednesday night but he was sedated, so H and I weren't able to really visit him until Thursday.

And Thursday was nice. I talked with my dad about Cleo, about H and I, soccer, how I felt aimless in my life lately, and about the book I've been writing. We watched most of The Hobbit. We could only watch it in five minute increments and then he would fall asleep for ten minutes. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was only part 1, since he likely would not live to see part 3 come out in 2014 and I figured I'd deliver that news at the end of the movie as a reason to keep living. He wasn't allowed to talk much due to how it would deplete his oxygen, and one of my fond memories during this time is a nurse coming in to scold him for talking. He looked appropriately chagrined from this, but when she turned her back he gave me that mischievous grin of his.

And we had the talk about the end of his life. He filled out paperwork about his his wishes and was insistent that he did not want to have life support except for temporary measures, which we didn't think would be an issue. Doctors had talked about putting a ventilator in, but had phrased it as a way so as to give his lungs a break while he recovers. So it was that on Thursday evening, when my father's oxygen levels had dipped dangerously low, that we consented to having a ventilator put in.

If I knew now what I knew then, I would not have consented.

I have issues many issues with how the medical system works, and one is that they are more concerned with "life" than they are with living. One of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett  who unfortunately is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, has a great documentary about it called "Choosing to Die" that I recommend. (Full documentary is available here for free on YouTube.)

I feel like what we faced over the coming days was constant pressure to push past what my father had decreed in his advanced directive. First my father was kept sedated since he would fight the breathing tubes if he woke up. Then his right lung collapsed, inflating his throat like a bullfrog. Then the other lung collapsed. Then they had a surgery done so they could start him on dialysis. The interventions kept coming and coming. Doctors who had told us that he would be on a ventilator for 2-3 days then told us it would be a week, then that he would have a tracheotomy done to keep a machine breathing for him and that he would still be sedated, he would spend up to 2-3 months on it, and that they would put tubes in his chest due to the lung collapse - a very painful and ridiculous procedure since the point of it was to allow his lungs, the same organs that were failing him and were struggling with two diseases, to heal from collapsing-, and on and on.

All to get him to the point where he could have a slim chance of possibly getting a lung transplant, a procedure my father did not want and which, by itself, posed huge risks and months of rehab. This is even if he could get a lung donation as a 62 year old man with two diseases and no kidney function. And there was no guarantee that he would be able to be conscious or coherent during this entire time of waiting for a lung.

Thankfully, my father's best friend John flew in from Wisconsin. He was able to ask the hard questions that Alison and I were unable to; to put the doctors' feet to the fire and make them tell us what the real odds of things were and what "recovery" meant. We learned then that the odds were astronomically slim, that they hadn't factored in that it was recommended that he needed a lung transplant PRIOR to all of their interventions, and recovery meant he would spend what was left of his life in a state immeasurably more miserable than the last few weeks had been. Without John, a caring and invested party who was able to be more removed from the situation, we likely would have found ourselves miles off course from my father's wishes after having dragged him through a bramble patch of suffering and intrusive interventions.

And this is something I was genuinely worried about. Could it be that we would fight to save his life to bring him back... only to find out that he was angry to be back and sentenced to a life in a broken body, in pain, with no way out except to wait to die again? And who would we bring back? My father, the man I remember, would be sympathetic and understanding that our pain caused us to defy his wishes and keep him here. But a crippled man, suffering tremendously, propped up by machines and half conscious (at best) from sedatives... how would he judge us?

If I had one hope during this time, it was that he would recover just enough to let us know what decision he wanted. I kept asking him to wake up in the vain hope that he could give me a sign of what to do. Sadly, this was not the case.

I don't have the words for what it's like to have to fight to allow someone you love to die. Nothing about it feels righteous, in fact, it feels quite the opposite. You feel like a ghoul. The more I look at it though, the more I realize we fought the good fight.

You see, while none of us were willing to admit the finality of this, my father had been. John and I discovered that he had said his goodbyes to both of us over the last several days. He had said to John less than a week ago that he would prepare the other side for us. On Tuesday, he had said to me that the game was up and he was rounding the home stretch (which at the time I casually dismissed and told him to keep fighting). Asking around a little bit revealed he had said similar things to others as well, and one friend revealed that my father had been coughing up blood a week earlier but had asked him not to tell us about it.

My dad knew. He was ready to move on. It was just... I didn't want to let him go, and I know everyone felt the same. Despite the fact that we made the right choice... I kept wanting to change it. As they unhooked him, as he struggled to breathe his last... I wanted to scream out that I changed my mind... that I wanted a do-over like I was some middle schooler playing foursquare on the playground.

But as the machines were rolled out leaving just Alison, John, me, and my father's body in the room, it was reassuring to see how peaceful he was. No more struggling to breathe. No more machines beeping and clicking, pumping gasses and fluids into him. There was release for all of us, and slowly, it set in that he was no longer there.

I ran out to the waiting room, tears streaming down my face, grabbed my wife and child, and held them tight. As I stared sobbing into the confused face of my daughter, I knew somehow that things would be okay. Over the past week, I have often just broken down and started crying out of the blue; feeling myself slipping into darkness. But then I'll see Cleo, cooing on a blanket, trying to accomplish the ridiculous feat of stuffing both of her fists in her mouth and it brings me back. My walk down the path of life with my father is done. No, we didn't get enough time, but tomorrow at least, Cleo and I will go for a walk instead.

Mommy Matinee 2: This is 40

I'm looking forward to the day that Tuesday will be bright and sunny and Cleo will be eager to head out. Until then, I have this:

I had planned to do something new like take advantage of the $4 baby day at the zoo, but sadly, it's a no go with weather like that. I'm anticipating we will be outside again soon, but until then, I'll be checking out the Mommy Matinees.

I party how I want to

This week we went to see "This is 40". Cleo slept the whole way there and woke up right when the movie started all ready to party! You know, as long as your definition of a party is screaming, crying, and eventually defecating on yourself. A friend of mine partied like that one night in college (albeit with the help of some hallucinogenic mushrooms) and while driving him home from Harborview Hospital the next day he informed me that it was not a pleasant experience, but that doesn't seem to deter my kid for some reason.

The place was a lot more packed than the last movie we went to and I also ended up sitting next to a group of moms who all knew each other. Initially it was just one who sat down, then she would excitedly wave at some lady who came into the theater who would then tromp over in an Ergo or wheel her stroller over until there were about four or five of them. Nothing wrong with this, just... kind of awkward... like having Patton Oswalt sitting at the same table as the ladies in Sex and the City.

The only time she slept?
The ticket line.

So was this movie funny? Parts of it were freaking hilarious! Unfortunately, the energy of the movie is just... vitriolic. The two main characters are angry and yelling at each other and/or their kids for about 2/3 of the movie. There's one point where the kids yell at each other to shut up, so the mom yells at them to shut up, and they yell back at her to shut up, so she yells louder at them to shut up and... it just feels like it goes on for freaking forever and makes you tense and wanting to yell at them to shut up!

As for how the babies handled this energy though... have you ever seen The Wave done in a stadium? Everyone standing up in succession, you can see it coming, you stand up and make noise when it's your turn, and then it goes on to the people next to you?

Picture that, except with crying babies.

Sooner or later, the Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann characters yelling at each other would cause... a cry in the theater. It would spill over to the next kid, then the next, cascading closer and closer to my little girl until, inevitably, she is set off. And let me tell you, that kid has a set of lungs on her! I think Cleo must have a competitive streak in her cause she would take whatever the kids around her were doing and crank it up a notch. You just get so used to your baby's cry that it just becomes a part of your life and I really had no idea that my daughter's volume goes up to 11 until then!

Unfortunately, once she was up, all of the angry sniping by Rudd and Mann in the movie kept her up. One of the "mom crew" moms next to me actually apologized to her boy for taking him to a movie with so much shouting. By the hour and forty five minute mark (of a two hour movie) the theater was full of wailing babies with parents (including me) walking around the theater comforting them, all of us unwilling to surrender and leave when the end was so close.

More Dos than Uno really...

The sad thing is that, while it was eclipsed by all the crying, I felt pretty vindicated as a journeyman dad there at one point. Cleo had a blowout early on with crap going halfway up her back, but I brought... THE BACKUP OUTFIT!  I get an almost transcendental amount of satisfaction from being prepared for stuff like this. You know how in UNO someone will change the color with their second to last card, but then you change it to something else right before it gets back to them and they sigh and have to draw a bunch of cards? That's what it feels like!

So anyhow, the ratings (1-10 scale):

Enjoyment - 6  Thought I was gonna give this a lower rating, huh? Well despite the toxic energy of the movie turning my daughter into a high needs baby it was freaking hilarious! Definitely felt a half hour too long though.

Comprehension - 8  A credit to the flat plot of the movie more than anything Cleo or I did to enhance this, but flat plot or no, I didn't ever feel lost. 

Baby Satisfaction - 2  Cleo did not like this movie and I can't say I blame her. Bad baby energy.

Grinding

There comes a point in RPG games where you have to do repetitive, easy battles over and over to get XP and/or money so that your character can move on to the next Big Boss Battle. This process is called grinding.

Right now, Tuesdays with Cleo is in a process of grinding until we level up.

This consists of me mastering the fundamentals of childcare while Cleo inches up the development chart to the point where we can do more strenuous activities together such as bicycling or taunting carnies. I've been winging the dad thing and getting by, but there comes a point where you have to go back to ground zero and work on your basics.



For instance, I need to truly master the art of child transportation.

As I've mentioned before, H is a lot more adventurous than I am with Cleo. I think she's at an unfair advantage in being able to keep pre-heated food on tap for the kid while they are on their journeys, but it goes beyond this.

H has an innate desire to suddenly change things up. This drives me mad when, for example, I'm cooking and I suddenly need something like, say, oven mitts, only to find they have been moved. I find little comfort in later being informed, while running my hands under cold water to ease the searing pain from having grabbed a hot dish with an inappropriately insulated towel, that the new location is far superior.

That's the mission?

After the burns heal, though, I'm usually forced to admit that the new location really is much better. That's the trade off. If left to my own devices I would complacently live in a stagnant situation, never knowing that things could improve 100% with a minor change to my life just because I was too apathetic to even make the attempt.

So when H recently got a new stroller for the kid, the BOB Revolution, I grudgingly committed myself to mastering it as soon as possible rather than avoiding it.


The test mission: To start from getting BOB out of the trunk, shop at Whole Foods, and then walk the .5 miles from Whole Foods to Grant Park and back.

The view from my window clarified this as a good Portland day. And by good I mean cold with grey skies but hey, it's not raining. And obviously Cleo was happy and eager to get started.

First was getting this thing out of the trunk. Thankfully, H did share some wisdom and I kept Cleo in the car seat while I puzzled this. You would think that a childhood of playing with Transformers would have better prepared me for this...

After a fairly minimal amount of swearing, it was on to Whole Foods. Cleo was immediately unhappy and began crying a lot, so I cheated. The shopping trip was to involve a number of things on my list including celery. What I got was... celery. I maintain that I completed my first objective of shopping. Then came the walk. As you can no doubt tell, Cleo enjoyed this part immensely.

I'm doing a much better job these days of not stressing out that I'm going to massively damage Cleo in some way, but every time a new variable is added into my life, I regress. Unlike our old stroller, BOB faces away from the parent, allowing your child to experience the world. For me, this meant stopping every block to make sure she was comfortable and warm and constantly checking on Cleo through the plastic window on top of the stroller.

I feel like I'm being watched...

Ultimately, I ended up bending the rules here too. I had an ideal in my head of showing Cleo the statue of Henry Huggins and his dog. Once I accomplished the technicality of making it to the park, though, I promptly turned around, rushing the screaming kid back. And of course, after my tactical retreat due to her loud protestations, a block away from the car she falls asleep.

Thankfully, all of our adventures end with coming home with a feeling of relief and satisfaction. I leave you with a pic of Cleo after our return where she really captures the sense of basking in our collective sense of accomplishment.

Toothdays with Cleo

So last Tuesday was amazing. I woke up and it was sunny, birds chirpingly mild weather with little animated Disney characters scampering on the windowsill. I checked the weather report and this was going to be the last nice day we will have for the foreseeable future. I was motivated, ambitious, and planning out a nice fun Tuesday with Cleo at the park.

So of course she starts teething. The kid was tired, fussy, and in no mood to go to the freaking park.

Ready or not...

It's uncommon for a kid to start teething as early as 3 months, but it's not unheard of. Unfortunately for us, she is only just now starting to get the concept that she can put things in her mouth which means she is suspicious of pretty much any teething aid. The only things that go in her mouth currently are mom's breast, dad's pinky, and her own two fingers.


The teething fussiness is a chore as it means she needs to be comforted more and will wake up screaming at night, but that's not really even the bad part. The worst, absolute worst part, is when she has this furrowed brow expression on her face in a kind of sad confusion about why you, as her provider and protector, cannot take this pain away. Which makes sense. In her view of the world, H and I are powerful demi-gods. Why, according to her, wouldn't we have the power to make this go away and why are we denying that to her?

And technically, we sort of do have that power. We have a bottle of children's Tylenol on our counter and it has helped her. We are hesitant to use it too much though. The kid has only one kidney so we are cautious about how often we give drugs to her. Sadly, my efforts to explain this to Cleo through the art of pantomime have so far only resulted in more crying.

Stuff like this makes me think of the Laocoon. When I studied in Rome, I found this piece to be incredibly compelling.

The Laocoon was a priest in the city of Troy who advised the Trojans to burn the horse the Greeks had given them. This pissed off either Athena or Poseidon, who then sent serpents down to kill him and his sons.

As an aside, living in ancient mythological Greece must have sucked. You were constantly in a state of PTSD since ANYTHING you did could piss off the gods who would then smite you and your family OR EVEN WORSE a family member could piss them off and they would kill you all or turn you all into goats or something. You think you hate your alcoholic uncle now? Well just think if his drunken urination on a shine of Phorcys resulted in you angrily spending the rest of your life as a seahorse!

Anyhow, the thing that struck me about this statue is that not only is his face an image of frustrated impotence in his inability to fight off the snakes, but that his sons are so confused. Dad is big and powerful (and, consistent with most ancient Greek and Roman statues, he must have done a crap ton of pilates and crossfit!) The kids can't even process that dad can't protect them and dad is frustrated that not only is he dying a senseless death for trying to do the right thing but also that nothing he does will save his kids.

To a much lesser extent, that's kind of what the whole teething situation is like. Except with less serpents and angry gods. And less imminent death and existential angst. And at least we get some respite when she gnaws on my finger.

Book Babies

It's not often that I dwell on my age. My previous identity as one of the childless allowed me to exist in a state where I really didn't have to consider age too much (or I at least could passively deny that it was happening).

Not a horse

Life kind of crystallizes when you are in your mid to late twenties and rarely alters except for the odd life changing event. Otherwise, while you do grow and evolve over the years, it's more like a shift from a wild horse to a domesticated horse. It's only when you compare a horse to, say, a ficus, that you really get subjected to some eye opening realizations.

As I interact more with other parents I am now forced to cope with one such realization: That I went to high school with people who have GRANDCHILDREN older than Cleo.

This became apparent to me as Cleo and I went to Book Babies at our local library for our weekly adventure. Book Babies involves songs, a reading of a story, other kids, and toys. Cleo and I both had a blast, but it took some adapting that some of the younger (and yet more experienced) parents did not bat an eye at.

On our way to the library

First adaptation: Floor sitting.

Babies and families all sit on the floor together here. When I reflected on this later, I realized that I honestly could not recall the last time I sat directly on a  floor. I meditate, but I use a Zafu cushion for this. My life is full of chairs and cushions and benches. Throw in the fact that Cleo can't sit up by herself yet requiring me to awkwardly support her in a position where she can view everything and my back was freaking killing me. I also was quickly realizing that I am in for years of floor and tiny chair sitting. I'm definitely budgeting for chiropractic care from this point on...

Second adaptation: Standing up.

With all the songs and activity involvement, there's a lot of stand up, sit down, stand up stuff going on. Standing up from the ground while carrying a kid shouldn't be too hard. Unfortunately, a lifetime of soccer playing gives you good cardio but bad joints. Standing instead required me to use a wall to support myself and some audible cracks and pops from my knees. After the group, the lady leading it mentioned, while giving me the flier with all of the song lyrics on it, that I can do as much or as little as I feel I can. My inner Primal Man was enraged by this and was screaming at me to pound my chest in response to this challenge and then urinate on the library to claim it as my territory, but thankfully I was able to just smile and say thanks.

Third adaptation: Singing.

I feel that, by a certain age, you've established your identity as someone who sings. These people then gravitate towards song based activities such as karaoke or chain gangs. The rest of us go on with our lives, not ignoring singing activities, but just not attending them in the same way that I don't go to rodeos or monster truck rallies. I do sing to Cleo. I sing while playing guitar or ukulele for her. I sing while I'm in the shower so that she doesn't feel like she is alone.

I don't, however, sing in public. Book babies requires the parents to sing fun little songs to the kids and I'm realizing that a lot of future kid activities will require me to sing in public. It takes me out of my comfort zone and honestly it wouldn't be so bad except for:

Fourth adaptation: The Microscope

This face helps me feel like I'm doing something right!

About halfway into this thing, I realized that I had never been out with Cleo with a group of strange parents and suddenly, I began to worry that I was being compared. Cleo was the youngest there so I had to prop her up while others were crawling and sitting. It was during feeding time, so I had to give her a bottle for a bit when she got fussy. I hadn't given her a bath today and there was some cradle cap going on in her hair that I suddenly felt very conscious about.

For the first time, I felt I was under the lens and being examined as a dad.

This required a deep breath and just faith that I wasn't doing the wrong things. I'm assuming that, like most things in life, coping with this will get better with time and practice. Until then I more or less have to fake that I feel comfortable. I plan on going  to Book Babies again in a few weeks with her, so I really hope that this comes around quick!

One Swing to Rule them All

Work was hell this past week, so on Tuesday I elected to stay home and have a lazy Tuesday with Cleo. I'm getting better at taking care of her for extended periods of time, but there is a consequence to this: Time goes faster now.

It's a common psychological concept. When we first experience something, the brain is more or less overclocking. It's using everything it has to take things in, problem solve, and to store information for later. When you drive to a new job for the first time, it feels like it takes forever because your brain is mapping the route, taking in landmarks, looking for hazards, etc.  Five years later your brain has it all mapped out and you end up zoning out on the way home, possibly even being frustrated that you didn't get enough time to finish that podcast you were listening to.

So it is with Tuesday. Even throwing in a brief trip to the store, it really flew by. Part of this is that over the past two weeks I have a sort of "circuit training" method for dealing with Cleo involving different activity stations.

Often in a typical day with Cleo, I will "run the stations" when she gets fussy. Station One is the changing table, Station Two is holding her on the Poeng chair, Station Three is the bouncy chair, station Four is the jungle mat, station Five is our bed where I have mini stations (boppy, practice sitting/standing, playing the ukulele for her), Station Six is the rocker cradle, and Station Seven is to the couch to feed her.

Through it all, though, Station Eight, the final station, is constantly in the back of my mind. 

That station: The Swing.

Don't get me wrong, the swing is a godsend! However, there is no single piece of child rearing equipment that elicits such mixed emotions from H and I. As far as I can tell, it has a 90% success rate of calming and quieting the child; often putting her to sleep as well. Which is a good thing... and a bad thing.

You see, the swing is like a cheat code in a game. You put in your code and suddenly the game becomes easier. However, if you cheat too much, the game loses it's challenge, and at the end of the day, the fun of a game comes FROM the challenge. In some ways, the point of my Station system is to make sure I have tried any and all methods of calming/entertaining the child before I resort to the swing.

That said, there are levels or sections in games that have been so tortuously difficult that cheat codes saved me from quitting. Seriously, there are games that I have enjoyed immensely but never finished due to the difficulty of a final level. Shadow of the Colossus is the biggest one that stands out for me. Feeling challenged is one thing, feeling frustrated is an entirely different one.

H and I both have the same mixed emotions about the swing. It has a very, very valuable place in our house and I would probably attack anyone who tried to take it. I'm not sure about H, but the swing is the ONLY place the kid falls asleep on my days to watch her. It's also an invaluable mom and dad "timeout" option when Cleo has pushed us to the breaking point.  

However, it is always there... tempting you. It's like a siren song calling you when the baby is only moderately cranky or tempting you to grab another 15 minutes of cry free time. Seriously, sometimes I can almost hear "Roots and Beginnings" from LOTR when I look at that thing...