A little backseat holiday caroling from your little friend Veda.
Enjoy, and if I don't talk to you before New Year's, have a happy start to 2010 too.
Now it's time to get back to more merriment and food and gift-giving and food and family togetherness and food.
Merry Christmas!
There are other good videos from this weekend, including one in which Tom proposes to Niki, and she accepts, at the Marine Corps Ball Saturday night, but I'm not sure they'd want me posting that one just yet. So we'll just stick to the basics for now.
Veda, crawling, cutely.
Before Veda was born, and even since, one thing that's been on my mind a lot is how she'll "turn out."
I'm interested to see, of course, even though I do get a little squeamish about how I might affect the outcome. It's much easier to imagine yourself sitting back and beholding this little person sprouting up into a full-blown human being without your interference, you see - anytime it occurs to you that you, personally, will have a hand in the process it seems almost terrifyingly certain that you'll screw it up.
I'm sure this is universal among new parents, too. Your baby is just perfect the way she is, of course, and somehow getting even perfecter every day. (Mainly because she doesn't know what incredible goobers she landed as parents.) When the day comes that Veda can observe what I do, how I approach this task of living life, and take little baby notes, hoo boy. It's all downhill.
(Even the word "task," just there, felt like a wrong turn. Shouldn't I have said "opportunity" to live life? "Gleaming, shiny, blessed exalted lottery prize of consciousness"? But no, I go with "task." Arduous, agonizing, ugly obligation. Way to go, Pop.)
Can you imagine when she's able to ask me questions, and solicit my opinions on worldly matters such as justice and literature and how much jelly goes on a PBJ? Oh man. All I can say is, enjoy your ignorance while it lasts, little one.
***
Sometimes you're afraid to even make predictions. After all, before I'd even met Veda, I was on record as hoping she'd be happy, and here nine months later, what do we have? A little girl who draws comments from strangers: "Such a happy baby!"
Stuff's spooky, man. What if I'd hoped wrong?
I like the happy thing, though. I say we keep going with it. Even if that's the only quality Veda is ever noted for, fine. Her name means "knowledge and wisdom," which are also nice to have, but you can do without either, in my experience. Even when we were naming her, I felt a little peculiar about, you know, deciding someone's destiny and all. I actually ran across a picture of a couple of Vedas on a baby names site, and was happy to see that it still left a pretty wide range of personalities she could one day embody.
Lotta leeway there.
I momentarily thought it would be funny, a while back, to go the other direction and try to point out characteristics I hoped she *wouldn't* have, especially if I could name celebrities who fit the bill, even including unflattering pictures if possible.
But I quickly ran into trouble there. It turns out that most people have some redeeming qualities, encouragingly enough, and I honestly had a hard time finding *anyone,* obvious folks like Hitler and Stalin excluded, who I could say is or was such a failure as a human being that I prayed my daughter never resembled them.
It's actually a pretty awful thing to say. About anybody. Especially celebrities, you could argue, since you don't even know them that well. Plus they've got parents too, and you just know some of those moms and dads already shake their heads when they think about how their little boys' and girls' lives are going, so why pile on?
And besides, I may be Veda's dad, but who am I to say how she should or shouldn't be? I want her to be happy, yes, but free too. If I could click a button and ordain her fate right here and now? No way. As I thought about it, I pictured her as a 16-year-old one day, in 2025 (!), browsing her floating hologram web terminal, and finding an ancient post by her dumb ol' dad, saying he was crossing his fingers she didn't turn out, oh, to play the accordion.
She'd eye the virtual screen with horror, read and re-read the words, then cast her saddening gaze over to the pearly white music case leaning against the wall by the corner, and vow never to play "Beer Barrel Polka" again. Ever.
I just can't do that to her.
So what I settled on instead were circumstances I hoped never to see her in. That seemed safe enough. "Love the sinner, giggle at the sin," right? Finally, the funny pictures started to fall into place. Right away I noticed several snapshots I hope never feature Veda's face in them:
Again, these may all be fine, decent individuals, at least some of the time, once, maybe, but I think we can all (even these people's parents) agree that Mistakes Were Made in the events leading up to these photographs. And they're mistakes I'll do my best to prevent happening to my daughter.
I'll also refrain from making any political statements, but will say that I hope Veda is never captured making this face during the swearing-in of her successor to public office.
Overall, she's basically free to be whatever she wants, as long as it makes her happy and doesn't land her on a celebrity mugshot website. Unless, of course, she got arrested for, oh, I don't know, conscientious objection or something. Something virtuous and principled.
Preferably without a swastika tattooed into her forehead, though.
A dad can only ask for so much.
***
Basically, little one, just don't turn out like Carl Panzram. This charming fellow was described as "rage personified" -- by himself, in his autobiography -- and is said to have told his executioner, right before he was hanged for the murder of 22 people, "Hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could kill ten men while you're fooling around!"
Ah, no.
But if, on the other hand, Veda as a young woman takes a liking to music, and makes incredibly charming out-of-genre covers of current pop hits, well, so much the better. Consider that particular choice of actions Officially Dad Sanctioned.
A few things to bear in mind if you decide to go as the cast of Rocky and Bullwinkle for Halloween:
- Almost nobody knows who Rocky and Bullwinkle are. The show went off the air in 1973, it says here, so actually I'm not entirely sure how I even know about them.
- Even fewer people know who Rocky and Bullwinkle's nemeses are, Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.
- When dressing up like Boris, bear in mind that it helps to be short and swarthy, only with sheet-white skin.
- When dressing up like Natasha, bear in mind that a purple dress and high heels don't provide much protection against October weather, especially in contrast to Boris's overcoat. This will make trick-or-treating less than appealing.
- When dressing your 8-month-old up like Rocky the Flying Squirrel, bear in mind that a costume built for dogs is actually pretty perfect, since it doesn't constrict the poor child very much and allows her cute face to be seen clearly.
- When dressing your dog as Bullwinkle, forget the white gloves and just go with clip-on antlers. Where were you going to find gloves that size anyway?
- Overall, if your family costume is this complex, involving multiple species and props such as a black-spraypainted 12lb. shot-put, try to get a plain background for the photos. Otherwise you can't see the bomb very well, or the antlers, and you kind of just look like a bunch of weirdos.
Happy Halloween, though!
Veda may have said her first words tonight, if this counts – we were heading out of the restaurant, and Penny told her to say "bye bye."
After a few moments' hesitation, Veda waved her little arm and said, clear as a bell, "Buh-baaah..."
We were flabbergasted and got so excited we accidentally scared the poor kid. She did it a few more times as we buckled her into her car seat.
She's going to make a great flight attendant someday.
Or a sheep.
This weekend we went to Indy and took Veda to the zoo for the first time ever. Penny had a hunch the little one would like animals, since Veda laughed hysterically at her Aunt Lauren's horse-sized dog, and this hunch was proven correct. We all had a great time watching the lemurs, and the donkeys, and the Scottish Highland Cow, and especially the goats. (They were very nice and let Veda pet them, even when she tried to poke their weird rectangle-oval eyes out.)
We also got to go out for Thai food, which was a risk for Mom and Katie, since neither was sure they'd like it. Fortunately, the dishes we ordered were indisputably tasty. After that we got to head over to a party - a bona fide party, with adults and everything - and catch up with friends we've known since the dawn of time.
Unfortunately, my sister was there (well, that part's not unfortunate), but she roped me into a game of Beer Pong (I know, I know) in which we got skunked by the opposing team. That meant we had to drink all the beer on our side (some of which had been seasoned with ping-pong-ball residue, mmm) and that I ended up with a headache the following morning, because I am old.
Still, that next morning we got to have lunch with some friends we've known only since the Precambrian Era, not quite the dawn of time, and enjoy delicious waffles. So that was fun.
And then we drove our waffle-stuffed, headachy selves back up to Winona Lake, pausing outside Roann, Indiana when we noticed Penny's sister Brittany sitting next to a river. This was not something you ordinarily expect to see on that particular stretch of road, so we turned around, pulled over and discovered that Britt and the rest of the family had been kayaking that morning, and were just now getting ready to have lunch at a nearby diner. So we did that too.
Then we met back up at Penny's mom's house for a little while, during which time Veda barfed on Penny's arm and I tried to keep our niece Gianna from jumping into a fountain. Good times.
But all throughout, I got to play with my latest favorite toy, which is the QuadCamera application for the iPhone. Whoo man. The iPhone doesn't have a particularly great camera, really -- not much better than any other cell phone, I don't believe, and actually worse than several. But it has that most prized and essential feature, which almost all other cameras lack, which is that you have it with you most of the time.
So this application, conceived by Mr. Takayuki Fukatsu, effectively makes the iPhone's mediocre camera *fun-ly* mediocre, much like my beloved Holga, and takes a series of photos in rapid succession, which are then conjoined in a fun, mosaic-looking collage that actually resembles some Holga shots.
It made me look at everything a little differently, which is just about all you could ask of a camera (especially a phone-camera application that cost less than a cup of coffee), and it made an already great weekend even more enjoyable.
Thanks, Takayuki.
Just doing a little I.T. admin around the house here, trying go gauge when we'll need to get a new external hard drive to house all Penny's projects, plus all the music and photos we steadily add to the digital stockpile.
Noticed an interesting phenomenon, involving a sudden spike in disk consumption right around February of this year. It would seem something caused us to start taking a lot more pictures...
(Incidentally, I predict that as Veda starts walking, talking and taking over small countries with the power of Raw Cuteness, we'll shoot even more photos - and especially video - than we already do. A new 1.5TB drive, which we'll need here in a few months, should fill up by the time she starts kindergarten.)
On Sunday, we met our friends Rachel and Kendal up in North Webster for a ride on "The Dixie," Indiana's oldest sternwheel sightseeing boat.
I think Veda liked it.
Penny and her mom, Sept. 1977
Veda and her mom, June 2009
"...there is the unmistakable in-the-middleness that parenthood illuminates for you -- the realization that you might not actually be the center of the universe after all, but that it *does* surround you, in time as well as space ... You see that just as sure as this little being came from you, you came from someone else yourself. The honor then becomes not that you started or finished anything, but simply that you get to take part..."
Yes, now that Veda's officially four and a half months old (which, incidentally, is my favorite number, and I meant to celebrate when she was four and a half weeks old, since after this my next chance is when she's four and a half years old, in August of 2013, and I hope to be around for her 4.5-decade commemorative gala as well), it's fun to look back and see what she looked like waaay back, uh, twelve weeks ago. (Trust me; if you've got somebody this young in the house, a lot happens in a dozen weeks.)
I must also point out that I didn't take these; these are the pictures from Veda's photoshoot with the magnanimous Jessica Marvel, who graciously offered her photography talents as a world-warming present to our daughter. (We have housewarming parties when you move into a new house; why not world-warming?)
Anyway, thanks again, Jess! Come back anytime!
Today I drove down to Indianapolis for a meeting. It's about two and a half hours from my front door to that of my coworkers, and always a good opportunity to catch up on some thinking.
Sometimes I listen to the local NPR station on the way out of town, then pick up the Indy affiliate as I get close enough to the city that it comes in decently. Other times I just listen to CDs, preferring to hear familiar songs instead of world events. Sometimes I drive in silence, but not often.
I've taken to running the GPS as I drive lately, even though I know the path well. And I like seeing when the device expects I'll arrive, even though on this particular run I always seem to better the estimated time by half an hour or so. (I suppose it's because my preferred route is all two-lane roads through small towns, and the open stretches between each town provide an easy opportunity to cruise a few mph above the posted limit. The car I take -- an elderly Acura handed down from Mom -- fairly glides down these threads of pavement, though I'm not much of a speeder, really. Usually I just go 8 or 10 over, give or take, preferring to take in some of the scenery and enjoy the wide, flat fields out my windows.)
My phone is also on, of course, awaiting any news from home about Veda, or Penelope, or I suppose Vince or the cats, though there's rarely anything to report with those guys. Or, you know, work might call.
And there are the windows to mess with, plus the sun visors, and this car happens to have a sunroof which can be powered into whatever position you like - open, closed, tilted, whatever. It's all quite comfortable once you fiddle with the electric seat motors and get into position.
And, of course, since it's a work day I'm also jotting things down from time to time as I drive -- pressing my paper against the steering wheel as I scrawl down whatever phrase or idea seems promising enough to transcribe later. On the passenger seat sits my reference materials: printouts from my coworkers' emails, client-approved briefs, research dug up by astute account folk.
So really, while driving oneself down open highways between the city where one lives and the city where one grew up and knows like the halls of his house (I'm actually not that familiar with the back of either of my hands, so that aphorism doesn't quite apply) would seem like a simple task, I've managed to complicate it with perhaps a dozen different distractions -- an assortment of stuff to adjust and record and connect and propose, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
At one point I was steering with my left knee while using my right hand to pick up the phone (Lope was calling, asking when I'd be home) and my left hand to turn down the radio, and wishing I had an extra finger to deactivate the cruise control since the truck in front of me had signaled a turn and would soon be slowing down, all while eyeing the GPS and planning to have it route me to the nearest gas station. (The gauge was reading pretty low.) My papers were slipping and blowing around the cabin, brushing up against the water bottle I'd filled and brought along for the journey.
I didn't think of it at the time -- all I thought was something like, "What a pain in the ass; I hope this call is important" -- but it was really a blown opportunity for me to place myself in the moment and focus on one simple task: driving the car. Even driving the car and taking the call would have been okay.
But I insisted on jumbling things up with three electronic devices, two mental tasks (listening to music and brainstorming on client work) and a host of mechanical dials, knobs and sliders. Here I drove five hours today through pretty Indiana countryside and damn near missed it.
And I thought of this phenomenon later this evening, while Lope was out at Yoga class and I was putting Veda in bed for the night.
(I know it's not really tucking her "in" when there are no real covers, and all you do is place her gently onto the crib mattress and align her stuffed animal beside her head, hoping she'll nuzzle in and drift off, but I really don't like typing the phrases "putting the baby down" or "putting her to sleep." Both sound far too euthanasiac for my taste. Though I suppose "putting her down" could simply involve insults, like "You can't read!" and "Your algebra skills are sorely lacking!" It's difficult to see how this would facilitate sleeping for anyone.)
She was pretty tired, and had finished her bottle -- well, turned away from it a couple times in a row -- so I was singing to her on my shoulder, patting her little bottom in time with the music. Gradually, gradually, she was letting go of the day and laying her head down on the burp cloth I'd strategically placed over my shirtsleeve. Her eyes were closing, and I could feel her little legs stopping their twitching and kicking, as her fists unclenched and arms started to swing lazily at her sides.
I thought about the sun still coming into the room -- It was only 7:30 or so, but bedtime is bedtime -- because I had neglected to lower one of the shades all the way. I thought about the fan blowing on us both, the air conditioner I'd set to just circulate air instead of refrigerating it, now that the house is all opened up for this week's temperate weather.
I thought about the bottle and how much was left, wondering where we stood on the continuum between so much drank that she really needed to burp and so little drank that she wouldn't be able to sleep very long. (When she turns away, bottle time is over; that's just how it goes.)
I thought about the clock I couldn't see in the next room, wondering if it was time for Lope to come back from Yoga or if she'd only been gone a little while. I wondered when Veda had gone down to sleep here in the room, so we could at least attempt (though it never works) to guess when she might be awakening next.
I thought about the emails I hadn't checked yet, having been away from my computer most of the day and unable to connect to the office network.
I thought about this blog and whether I could or would post it or not, wondering whether there was anything interesting to say today.
And then, at last, I thought about what Penny had said in the car yesterday, as the two of us discussed happiness and I apparently forgot something I must have read a thousand times before.
"Well, you know what the key to happiness is, right? I mean, everybody says it." She looked up into the rearview mirror, making eye contact with me from the back seat where she sits beside Veda.
"No," I said, shaking my head after a few moments' thought. If everybody's in agreement on this, I ought to know, right? But I didn't.
"Living in the present moment," she said, and went back to amusing the little one. "If you can do that, you can be happy."
Ah yes. I remembered now. I'd read that somewhere too, and thought to myself, "Well, fantastic. I can do this incredibly important and impossible thing -- attain happiness -- by just doing this other incredibly important and impossible thing and somehow 'living in the present.' Lot of help this book is."
Still, for a moment the task wasn't difficult at all. I rocked Veda, and breathed in deeply for each soft verse I sang to her, and exhaled slowly as the words floated out. I looked down at her face, watching for the pretty pale eyelashes to bat back open, watched her eyelids twitch gently as she drifted off. I listened to the fan as it blew from the window onto our skin, cooling us a little and drying the damp sweat where her skin laid against mine.
She was asleep enough to try laying her down in her crib. But I hesitated.
Why rush, after all? Penny wasn't due back for a while, I knew -- even though I hadn't checked the clock since I came up the stairs. And Veda had all night to sleep; this was hopefully just the beginning of a good long snooze. As soon as I was done here it would be back downstairs to check emails and confirm meetings and delete spam, etcetera etcetera etcetera.
So I stayed. There in the rocking chair. In the darkened room, not too dark with its one still half-opened shade. With Veda breathing deeply and ever more slowly on my chest. Listening to my sung verses fade into whispers, then just long breaths. Feeling the rocking chair slowly drift into stillness, its repetitive motion no longer needed. And I sat there. We sat. Stayed. Listened.
Felt.
It undid all the miles of fidgeting and projecting and reflecting, just those few moments there in the room with Veda. And though I knew that in a bit I'd be laying her down, hoping she wouldn't wake up and cry and start the difficult process of going to sleep (she did), and though I knew that in a few years I'd be miles away from these days of soft rocking and repeated lullabies, and looking back happily if with a bit of sadness over what had come and gone, I didn't think much of either of those things. Not at the moment.
I was able to sit with her and just be calm, and just be there. Then.
It was a gift she gave me, I think, and it was just what I needed, and greatly appreciated.
And I was able to post that blog after all.
So the other day I was telling Veda that she should really stop crying, because if she didn't I would have to tell everyone I know that this whole baby thing isn't all it's cracked up to be, and then *they* would tell everyone *they* knew, and so on and so forth until next thing you know word gets around and nobody's having babies at all.
Widespread abstinence. Zero population growth. The demise of the human race.
Real nice, Veda.
I don't think she really bought into my line of reasoning, though, because although she did eventually stop crying and finally went to sleep, it honestly seemed to have little to do with my apocalyptic threats and more to do with my figuring out how to adjust the light/temperature/sound/etc in her room, as well as the food/burps/fluids in her body. That always does the trick.
Still, just yesterday she seemed to be making efforts to preserve our species through her own estimable personal charm. And it totally worked - watch this video, featuring Lope pretending to sneeze and Veda finding it absolutely hilarious - and see if it doesn't make you like babies a little more.
Then go forth, friends, and reproduce with impunity. You've got my endorsement... and Veda's.
For whatever reason - and I don't think we're unique in this respect, either - Penny and I seem to give our daughter nickname after nickname, and all of them seem to rhyme. It's fun every time, but the really fun part is how easily different baby character traits align with various female names.
(If you happen to have a son, you'll have to let us know if boy names work as well for the impromptu rhyming nickname. Somehow I doubt it.)
For example, when hanging out with Veda, you have to watch out these days because although we don't see any teeth yet, she's suddenly and now frequently Drooly Julie. And that's fine; we're well supplied with bibs and burp cloths, but you also have to watch out for her to become Messy Bessie, or eventually even Dirty Gertie. (If Farty Marty makes an appearance, you know the clock is ticking.) Pretty soon you'll have to change her, which she kind of enjoys on account of the opportunity to be Nudie Judy. (We're planning on teaching her discretion at some point in the future. For now we just giggle alongside her.)
After she's changed, though, it might be a good time for her to take a nap. Keep an eye out for Snoozin' Susan there, followed perhaps by Snorin' Lauren. Either one is better than what you get if she needs a nap and hasn't had one - nobody's a fan of Yellin' Helen.
But in the end, we all want the same thing. A visit from Smiley O'Reilly. And even though this particular nickname doesn't correspond to a *first* name, technically, ol' Smiley's just so charming that you don't hardly mind making an exception.
Sorry to disappoint the grandmas here, but I had to post this latest batch of pictures from my Flickr page. They're the Holgas from the last few months, and I really, really like a few of 'em. (More to come, since I also uploaded a bunch of cell phone pics that I liked too.)
Thanks again to Ryan for letting me use the camera.
The other day Penny's mom told me something I didn't know about hydrangeas.
"They're great bloomers," she said, (I knew that part) "But it's tricky to get them to bloom in blue around here. The soil's not very acidic."
What? I always thought the color of the flower was built right into the seed; didn't you? It made me think, as most things do these days, of Veda.
She's forming a little personality now, you see, and it's pretty thrilling. Each day another little aspect emerges. Sometimes you can even notice it in the pictures I take.
So I've just been thinking a lot about how much of that spark - that interest, that determination, that... Veda-ness - is being created and how much is being revealed right now.
Is it the seed or is it the soil? And what about the water and sunlight, which seems to be where we come in these days?
Even if you don't count me writing this blog (a momentous occasion indeed), there's a lot going on right now. It's always this time of year that makes me feel that strange combination of exhilaration and panic, as Summer starts rolling along and the days get nicer and nicer more often and I simultaneously sense that on the one hand, there will be so much to do and, on the other, so little time in which to do it.
The sands of time are ever slipping through our fingers, homeboys and girls.
Why, just the other day, when Penny's mom pulled off an impromptu weekend camping trip for the family, and casually mentioned that she might like to do this *every* month, I raised an eyebrow, prompting her to point out that this would actually only be four more times. Four. After that, Fall will be back upon us. Four more measly chances to add to the precious trove of cherished family memories. Or not. And so it goes.
So I figure the least we can do is acknowledge this juncture, to at least take a moment to inventory the many intersecting occurrences going on as we speak, and to try and immortalize them in this very next paragraph. Or two.
Sunday was Mother's Day. That was fun. It also happened to be the official Frost-Free Date for our part of the country, a date eagerly anticipated by many a gardener -- us included. The Saturday before that was our 5-year Anniversary, though neither of us really posted anything about it this time. (It was great though, I assure you. A quiet date night with sushi and a mindless movie. Perfect.) Obama's been in office about 100 days now, which is kind of a historic occasion as well, and our dog Vince turned 6, which I still can't believe the media didn't cover. The cats, being one year senior to Mr. Vincent, are now 7.
What else? I'm sure you have your own little milestones, or not-so-little. I hate to leave them out of this, but I can't really not. I know our friends Ryan and Sarah have lost a couple of grandparents very close together very recently, and I'm sad for them. My sister Katie gets to go to New Orleans for the first time in a few days, and I'm happy for her. Our friends James and Jessica just got back from there, so I'm happy for them too. Penny's sister Lauren is about to celebrate her daughter Gianna's first birthday, and I'm downright ecstatic for them both.
So many noteworthy occasions.
Perhaps the one looming largest in our lives right now, or at least the one affecting it most dramatically day-to-day, has to do with Veda. She's officially three months old today. One quarter of a year.
New parents are told of this day in near mythical terms -- the moment at which "it gets a lot easier." At three months, they tell you, the baby will be more alert, more playful, more able to be reasoned with (well, comforted, at least) and more fun.
And I'm happy to tell you that in our case it's all proven true. Veda laughed for the first time the other day, and the second time yesterday, and the third time today. My goodness, my friends, it almost collapsed us. I myself laughed and cried at the same time, which doesn't happen every day.
So that alone is probably worth jotting down. She smiles now, and maintains eye contact, and notices things. She'll stare at the lamp in the living room for a good five minutes, just grinning and studying its shape. We think those two are going to be great friends.
"Well, is she sleeping through the night yet?" we get asked a lot. No, not so much. She still gets up a couple of times, usually around 2 and 5, but let me tell you this: she goes to sleep around 8 or 9 and wakes up around 6 or 7. Pretty much every day.
This consistency is a tremendous relief to Lope and me. Just to be able to get into some sort of schedule, rather than being on Constant Baby Alert, is such a load off that we hardly even mind the early-morning feedings. (Well, *I* don't. Lope, being much more parentally inclined and vigilant, still sleeps fitfully most nights and wakes up at the slightest stirring from Veda's room. I, jerk that I am, snooze right through it. Sorry, Lope.) We're just getting used to it, I guess, and you never really get used to the other way -- around-the-clock, mega-intense, oh-god-what-day-is-it new parenting.
Today is Wednesday; I know this for certain.
And it does seem to be "going by so fast," which is the other assurance everyone offers you. They say to enjoy these days while they last, and we're doing our best to do exactly that. It's hard to believe we're three months in already.
I actually remember the last few days of Lope's pregnancy, when she and I would walk (slowly) around the park and discuss what was just around the corner. I remember agreeing -- after an extended period of disagreeing -- about the upcoming event. She'd been saying she was ready to get this baby out, and I could certainly see why. She was swollen; she was tired; she wanted to meet our new daughter already. I did too, but I couldn't tell Penny I was ready yet. I made some lame point about how I wanted the baby to come soon, but not right this minute, because I still didn't feel quite prepared enough. And I told her that while Veda was still inside her, there was no way I could screw the poor kid up yet. Which was kind of reassuring.
Of course, Lope and I both knew that you never really feel "ready," at least not in our case, but we did agree on the feeling of *anticipation.* I *was* looking forward to the birthday, but with equal parts excitement and dread.
"Everyone says the first three months are hell, Lope. Everyone who's ever had kids. How could I be in a hurry to go through that?"
"You should be in a hurry because the sooner it starts, the sooner we can get through this."
And she was right. From then, I started feeling much better. It finally made sense in my mind that, no matter how hard those first 90 days were going to be, they, too, would pass. And that we really could do it, despite my personal doubts, because everybody's parents do it, or the six billion people who are alive now, well, wouldn't be. I changed my tune.
"Okay, Lope," I think I said, "Let's do this. It's not like we're going to change our mind or go back now, and stalling won't do us any good, so you're right: Let's just man (woman) up and *do* *this.*
And we did.
I'm proud of us. Mainly of Lope, I was going to say, since she's been easily the more amazing of our little twosome, taking on primary responsibility for Veda from Moment One and letting me fall into sort of an Assistant Coach role -- you help out as much as you can, of course, but it'd be silly to take credit for the team's wins -- but actually I have to say I'm equally proud of both of us. This was really hard for me.
I'm not a natural parent. I don't feel like I was well prepared for this challenge, and I wouldn't say that I met it with skill and aptitude at every turn. Not at all.
But I did it. 90 days down, the only first three months of parenthood I'll ever have to go through, done. I've been looking forward to this day for a long, long time.
So that's one more milestone to observe in this first part of May, 2009. Here we are, almost 32 years into my life, perhaps a few more into yours, perhaps a few less. (Only 6 into Vince's, so don't feel bad if you're a little behind.)
Five years into our marriage. Point-two-five years into Veda's life. And into Obama's presidency. And a day or two into planting season in Indiana.
I'm not quite sure what to make of it all.
But I know what I *did* make -- this post -- and I feel pretty good about that too. Glad to get it all written down.
And I'll finish with a snapshot of some pertinent facts about Veda's life so far, courtesy of a fun Excel spreadsheet (you'll never hear that phrase from me again) sent to me by my sister this morning.
You just put in your birthdate, which I suppose would be where you started, and it tells you where you are now. Then you gape in amazement that, for example, Veda's heart has beaten more than nine million times so far. And that she's got about 17,000 workdays ahead of her before retirement. (We'll see if we can't do something to shorten that for her a bit.) And that she shares a birthday with Chuck Yeager, easily a top-ten candidate for Coolest Human to Ever Walk the Planet.
It doesn't list things like diapers changed (about a thousand, by my reckoning) or giggles so far (three, and counting), or blog posts (16, and -- sure enough -- counting) or Flickr pictures uploaded (196, plus 21 or so videos), but I still thought it was pretty fun.
If nothing else, it's an interesting snapshot -- the click of a shutter, the posting of a blog, the processing of an Excel formula -- corresponding to a moment in time. The way things are right now.
And from where I sit, there's not much more you can say about anything besides that. But fortunately, that still leaves us with plenty to consider.
Haspin Acres, in scenic Laurel, Indiana, bills itself as "750 acres of wooded hills and trails for your use and enjoyment," and welcomes "anyone who is looking to have a great time being safe and getting dirty!" This is an accurate assessment of the offerings, since the hundreds of miles of trails and two -- count 'em, two -- motocross tracks, complete with jumps and everything, ensure you'll have fun and the one -- count it, one -- big creek running through the center ensures you'll get dirty.
Tom and I arrived on Sunday at around 1:00. Last year, we brought my bike as well, and Tom's was wearing street tires, but this time we wised up. Pulled in with a knobby-shod Suzuki DR350, mounted to the back of a Chevy Trailblazer support vehicle, complete with two toolboxes and a cooler stocked with ice water. Stepped out of the truck in a shiny yellow Aerostich suit, stuffed to the gills with impact-resistant padding and abrasion-resistant fabric panels. You'd have thought we knew what we were doing or something.
After seeing me ride off for the first couple yards, though, you'd have known different. It was my first time on knobby tires, and darn near my first time on real dirt. So unlike the indestructible pre-teens who zoomed hither and yon astride their purpose-built, featherweight dirt bikes and 4-wheelers, many dressed only in shorts and a tank top plus sneakers and a helmet, I proceeded with caution.
The ruts and channels in the battered surface of the park bore little resemblance to even the worst paved road you ever drove on, with random criss-crossing grooves a foot deep or more, and with every application of the throttle I had to decide whether to dodge the next rut or ride in it. All while dodging trees and branches. In unfamiliar territory. On completely unmarked trails. Some featuring blind turns and two-story drop-offs. Or jeep-sized mudpits (see picture of what happened to somebody else) with the consistency of tar. And a section called "Devil's Backbone."
I was exploring alone, as well, partially because Tom and I were taking turns on the bike, having only one truly dirt-worthy mount between us, and partially because Tom -- in a completely uncharacteristic equipment oversight -- forgot his helmet.
So while Captain Kline headed out to town in search of some cranial protection, I wandered the woods on the DR. I kept seeing other riders in the distance, or sometimes buzzing past in big dusty herds, and couldn't help noticing they were all covered in dirt. And though I was having a lot of fun testing my skills on ever-steeper and narrower paths, crawling up root-strewn ascents with my newfound knobby-enhanced traction, I was gleaming clean still and knew I wouldn't be doing any hardcore mudding like those guys.
No, thanks, I'll just stick to the dry trails and the high ground, ambling around by my lonesome until Tom gets back for his turn. No sweat.
After about 45 minutes, of course, I was hopelessly lost. Having fruitlessly flagged down a line of ATVers in hopes of being pointed toward the entrance ("No, we don't really know either. We just ride.") I got myself stranded in a low-lying bowl of dirt, into which three or four tributaries of the creek seemed to flow. Every way out except the way I came in would involve fording a stream at least a foot wide, something I wasn't sure the DR or my riding skills were up to. And the way I came in was too steep for the bike to climb -- it had been almost too deep for the brakes to even slow the bike on the way down.
But what are you gonna do, you know?
I assessed the most welcoming approach and gassed the bike in that direction. I had to thread the tires between a couple of muddy pools, which didn't seem to present much difficulty. What would be tough was to get up enough speed to make it up the hill and out.
This turned out not to be an issue, though, since I lost traction somewhere between the puddles, tried to put a foot down to steady the bike, realized I'd just stepped into maybe 20 inches of mud and splashed down into said puddle -- bike, suit, helmet and all.
The funny thing was that it didn't hurt at all: the mud was so forgiving it was like falling into bed. Except that once I had done it I was lying on my side with a running motorcycle on top of me. (Pretty though it may be, in its own, battered and brutal way, it turns out I *would* kick that Suzuki out of bed. If I could.) I struggled to get the bike upright, my feet refusing to budge from the muck. It took half my strength just to extricate myself, leaving little to use in the wrestling match against 300 lbs of slippery metal and plastic.
I half worried someone would come by and see me, and half worried they wouldn't.
Eventually, though, through sheer desperation I think, I managed to get it back up on two wheels again. And somehow I swung a mud-caked leg back over it and it miraculously started right back up and we scaled the wall of dirt to ride back out of my predicament. My entire right side was saturated with creek sediment, as was the bike's bodywork, frame, handlebars and slowly steaming muffler. Sorry, Tom.
What I noticed, though, was what a relief the fall had been. Now that I'd gone down, now that I was dirty, I had nothing left to lose. (Well, my life I suppose, if I were to foolishly plonk off the crest of one of those ravines or something, but it's no good to dwell on these things.)
After I was dirty, the ride was even more fun. I knew what it felt like to topple, and had mastered my procedure for righting the bike, and even learned a little about some on-the-bike techniques for avoiding spills in the first place. (Dragging the back brake, for instance, lets you go a little slower while still keeping the engine revving and the suspension settled, making long, bumpy descents and tight turns considerably easier.)
By then Tom was almost back, though, so I eventually found my way out. My secret: just keep looking for bigger and bigger trails (the path *more* traveled by, as it were -- sorry Robert Frost) and don't head down into any more gulches.
The mud was drying in my leg hair, gluing my socks to the skin. Owie.
But once I got back Tom was ready to go. Fearless Thomas hopped on, sped off and proceeded to discover parts of the place I didn't even notice on the map. He jumped the edges of hills, checked out the motocross track and even crashed the bike quite spectacularly, flipping over the handlebars and rolling in the dirt like he was born to do it. Here's a picture from right before it happened, when he's landed the poor bike and compressed the suspension all the way:
(You can even see the waterproof videocamera mounted to his handlebars -- it's that black cylinder that looks like an enormous half-smoked stogie.) And, perhaps most heroically of all, he got video of the whole incident:
And after that I noticed *he* was having a lot more fun too. The crashes didn't make us meeker or more cautious; if anything they showed us that going down doesn't kill you and a little dirt never hurt anybody.
Which is what made me think about, of all things, Veda. I remembered being so scared of her at first... so worried she'd cry or squirm or just shatter in my hands that I could barely exhale until Penny took her. But now that she's almost three months old (three months old!), I know I can play with her until her "talking" takes on a certain frustrated tone, and I can carry her a certain way to prevent barfage, and I know that smiling at her now will usually make her smile back. So I get to play with her.
Something could go wrong, of course... she could cry in such a way that I couldn't stop her in time, and escalate into a full meltdown. She could barf all over me anyway, despite my occasionally nice clothes and hesitance to twirl her around my head until she's had at least one healthy burp, or she could squirm suddenly and almost make me drop her.
All those things are possibilities. But now that most of them have happened, and I had a chance (well, no choice, to be 100% accurate here) to figure out how to deal with each calamity as it comes, there's a lot less to worry about, and she's a lot more fun. If she freaks out I'll try holding her across my chest with her arm down under mine and her head lodged into my inner elbow. If she barfs I'll carry her upstairs and clean her up and change her clothes. If she squirms I'll have anticipated it and will have a secure grip on our fragile little squirt already.
It'll all work out just fine.
The bike will start back up again. The baby will calm back down again. If you fall down you'll get back up. And, dirty as you may be, you'll continue on down the trail.
Now, I'm not likening my daughter to a 1997 Suzuki on-off-road bike. For one thing, the sounds that come out of her tailpipe are distinctly quieter and more effeminate.
But I will say that off-roading is at least a bit like parenting -- it's scary at first, until you just try it, and then it's still challenging but actually kind of fun in its own way. And the better you get, the better you feel.
Oh, and there's a good chance you'll end up covered in something you never intended to touch. But you know what? You'll live. You might even enjoy it.
Thanks for the outing, Tom. And the lesson. (Oh, and the coolest picture of me ever taken. That was a nice bonus too.)
I'm really glad whoever invented this Blip thing was smart enough to make it work so well.
It's essentially Twitter for songs, which means it's essentially a receptacle for all your little disposable notions, all of which can now be shared with the world at large at the click of a button. The fun of it is that you can think of a song you're singing to yourself, find it in the database and then "blip" it to all your friends so they can hear it and sing it to themselves too. After all, if the immortal Don Gardner's "My Baby Likes to Boogaloo" is stuck in your head -- and it should be -- why shouldn't all your friends get to experience the hoarse bellowing and crash-smashing drums too?
Plus you get to write little commentary about why you like the song or why you thought of it (the crash-smashing drums, I'll bet), and these comments are kind of a fun modern-day equivalent of the liner notes we used to make in our personalized mixtapes back in the day.
(I realize now that by referencing Twitter and mixtapes in one entry, I've effectively lost 99% of the potential audience who could be reading this. But if you're one of the folks in that narrow sliver of an age bracket who knows what both are, hey -- read on and enjoy!)
Another great thing about Blip is the "re-blip." Here you can hear a song a friend of yours liked and essentially say, "Hey! Me too!"
Then you click the appropriate button and your pal's recommendation of, say, Sir Mixalot's paean to fast-food baked goods, "Buttermilk Biscuits," is now *your* recommendation as well, and will appear on your website for *your* friends to click and enjoy too.
And this is what I'd like to do right now. Not with a song, though, but a blog.
Veda's getting older now, you see, which I realize sounds ridiculous to say about someone who wasn't alive before the Obama administration. But aging she is, nonetheless, and as I've watched her outgrow clothes and car-seat cushions and certain behaviors over these past few weeks I've found myself growing a bit wistful. Which is funny, I know.
But I really like how my sister-in-law Lauren expressed this thought, so rather than expound on it right now I'll just, uh, Blip you right over to her post from last October, when her daughter Gianna was about five months old and she felt this feeling and covered it quite beautifully. Just click her name there, and that should suffice.
Happy reading. Hey, and happy almost-first Birthday, Gianna!
We've learned a lot over these past ten weeks since Veda's birth, to say the least. And not just vocabulary expansion, either. (Though I'll admit that terms like Meconium, Vernix, Boppy, Bumbo and Receiving Cloth were certainly new to me. Still not clear on what Thrush or Brickdust are, and not inclined to find out unless I have to.)
Among the new discoveries has been a host of what I'd call "Parentools": stuff you never really needed, or never needed in quite this way, until having your first kid, and then you need them intensely.
And of course every parent has his or her own list, and I imagine they all enjoy sharing it as much as I'm enjoying sharing mine with you. Makes me feel like I know what I'm doing, you know?
Furthermore, on the off chance that you actually are expecting a baby in the immediate future -- we've got a few friends who happen to fall into just this category -- this list could prove not only interesting and (ideally) entertaining, but useful as well. I can personally vouch for the usefulness of just about everything on it, and I can almost guarantee you that no one, as I said, will buy you any of it for your baby shower. (Which is understandable. Cute little "onesies" -- another vocab word added to my lexicon here of late -- are just too much fun to give instead. An industrial-strength set of hearing protectors admittedly seems to lack whimsy by comparison.)
So here goes. (Note: this originally appeared as a shopper's guide on Amazon.com, which explains why all the items are available through that site. You can access the list, in fact, by clicking on the title text of this entry.)
Peltor 97010 Ultimate 10 Hearing Protector
The product that spawned the whole list. After those first couple weeks of deafening shrieks in our ears, courtesy of our beautiful new baby daughter, I finally headed down to the basement with an idea: Why not try the hearing protectors I use while running the table saw, lawnmower or other high-decibel devices?
At first it seemed silly, and possibly wrong, but my wife and I were quickly converted. They're amazingly effective and much more convenient than earplugs. I haven't measured with an SPL meter or anything, but I'm pretty sure our daughter's change-my-diaper-right-this-minute cry at just a few inches from your head is at least as loud as our 16-hp riding mower in an open lawn. So there's a definite need.
And here's the thing -- this device will protect your hearing, yes, improving your chances of being able to carry on a conversation with your kid as old age approaches, but it'll also protect your sanity. Ask a drill sergeant; it's a challenge to perform any task well with a person yelling in your face. And when your baby is upset over, say, a dirty diaper, it's critical that you do the job as quickly and efficiently as possible, soldier. Which is a lot easier when you can think straight.
Some parents may say this is callous and cruel. In fact, we hesitated to tell our friends about our little discovery, but shielding oneself from the full blast of an infant in distress is just good sense. You can still hear everything perfectly clearly through the earmuffs we keep on a little peg by the changing table; just not with such ferocity. Takes the edge off. Makes it easier to sympathize and read your baby's face, instead of wincing from the wall the sound she's generating.
So aside from looking a little silly, everybody wins -- you get presence of mind without pain and suffering, and your kid gets parents who aren't panicked or peeved. Or deaf. I just wish they made them in baby sizes, for protecting the little one as well.
Keep them around for when she first discovers Alanis Morissette.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens
A snap-happy parent's best friend. Add this lens to your Canon digital SLR (There's one for Nikon owners too) and take easy, amazing pictures of your brand new offspring. I can't explain precisely how it manages this; for that you should consult Bob Atkins's website, as I did, but my understanding is that its lack of a zoom allows it to have great glass inside for a low price, and that great glass, in turn, allows you to take sharp, accurate photos of your little one in very low light -- which happens to be most of the photo opportunities you'll get. No using a flash to floodlight the poor child and make her look like a tiny fugitive, and no explaining to her that you bankrupted her college fund to purchase a megabucks camera kit.
As a bonus, the 50mm size on most cheaper dSLRs (like our Rebel) makes for a nice, intimate range of focus. It's far from a wide-angle; leaning over the crib will result in a gorgeous, frame-filling portrait of your little angel's face, snoozing peacefully or looking up in wide-eyed wonder. And you can take all the credit for the resulting picture. *I* certainly do.
Save your zoom lens for later, when you're shooting from the sidelines of a soccer field or dance recital.
Chaney Instruments Digital Alarm Clock with Green LED display
A big, easy-to-read clock is essential for learning your baby's schedule. Knowing when she last ate -- or emptied -- makes anticipating her upcoming needs much, much easier, and as more and more of us these days forgo wristwatches in favor of checking our cell phones to see what time it is, know that you won't always be able to reach the phone or fish it out of your pocket. Rig up one of these oversized, backlit bad boys in the room where you spend most of your time and watch your parental rhythms fall into place. (Kudos to my friend Larry for pointing out the necessity of this item. His daughter was born a few weeks before mine, and when he called to check in on us his first question was whether I had a watch or not. When I answered in the negative, he swore to send me one immediately.)
Maxxima MLN-10 LED Night Light With Sensor
You won't suddenly become scared of the dark as a new parent; don't worry. It's actually the opposite -- in the middle of the night as you creep across the floor to change your baby or feed her, the last thing you'll want to do is flip on the overhead room lights and wake everyone up. Array some night lights, or dim bulbs in your usual household lamps, to facilitate low-lumen mobility.
OCEAN WAVES (Sounds of Nature Series) Much like the night lights, this item is all about creating a peaceful environment for the new baby. The soft, rhythmic crashing of waves can help lull the little one to sleep, as well as gently masking any potentially disturbing background noises once she's nodded off. (For instance, the sound of furtive typing as Dad jots descriptions for an Amazon list.) We actually got an MP3 download from Amazon for 99 cents, if I recall correctly, but you can buy the whole disc if you want.
Sweet Dreams Contoured Sleep Mask with Earplugs and Travel Pouch - Black Having a newborn in the house is a little like taking a cross-country train ride. The scenery is amazing, but you can't really go anywhere. And since you'll be sharing your cabin with a new little person who hasn't been acclimated to your existing sleep schedule, you'll want to grab every opportunity to sleep when you can -- when the baby is sleeping. Even when that's in the middle of a bright, sunny afternoon.
Fisher & Paykel Intuitive Eco Top Load Washer The statement below is an understatement:
You'll also be doing more laundry than usual.
An energy-efficient washing machine -- one that can automatically adjust its water usage for differently sized loads -- will lower your utility bills and offer you the freedom of just tossing a few recently soiled items in for an emergency cleansing. No need to wait for more stuff to get dirty (though it certainly will). We love our Fisher & Paykel top-loader pair. We doubt it loves us back.
Canon Powershot A1000IS 10MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Grey) This? This meager mini-cam as the mighty, dad-ly, big-and-bad-ly video rig? Yep.
I looked at lots of high-definition, mega whiz-bang digital video cameras, and it would indeed have been really sweet to capture our new baby daughter in full 1080p glory, no question.
But ultimately... even "1080p" is going to sound hilariously antiquated by the time our daughter starts school, and the best camera at any given moment is always the one you have with you. So I stand by my choice of a cheap, high-quality pocket-sized point-and-shoot with a built-in Movie function. 640x480 clips look pretty good on a DVD for the grandparents, and are easier to email anyway.
Sapporo Ichiban Ramen, Original, 3.5-Ounce Packages (Pack of 21) Just kidding. Do not give anyone ramen noodles as a shower gift. But the fact remains that new parents don't have much time for cooking. So if you can track down some really good instant meals -- it's tricky, especially when shopping for someone else -- or, better yet, cook something yourself and deliver it ready-to-heat, you'll have a friend for life. Our doula, for instance, showed up when our daughter was only a few days old and was carrying a spinach quiche, black bean soup and raspberry scones. All homemade. Mom brought us spaghetti casserole, chocolate cinnamon cake and other treats. For days to come we sang both their praises, always with our mouths full.
Bonus Items
There are, of course, many other fantastic things to give someone to help ease the transition into parenthood, but unfortunately many of them aren't sold on Amazon.com. Some of them, in fact, aren't sold at all. Maybe someday.
- A Flickr account, for sharing pics with far-flung and impatient relatives. Who has time to print and mail anything these days?
- An iPhone, which my wife now swears by as the key to stationary-parent communication. Baby in one hand, internet/email/texting in the other. It's a beautiful thing.
- Time. If only there were a few guaranteed back-to-your-old-life hours in each day, in which you could catch up on work, grab a shower, go see a movie without having to turn on the subtitles because you can't turn up the volume without disturbing the baby, clean up the house -- what, did a bomb hit in here? -- this new-baby stuff would be a lot easier to cope with. Alas, it's more of a total-immersion experience.
- Patience. There may be parents who never, not once, not even for a split second, forget that their howling baby dragon is actually just a helpless little human being, and never take it personally or get frustrated when they're unable to calm their child for hours on end, and never need to resort to witless tactics like earmuffs and ocean sounds and light-blocking eye masks. There may be those parents somewhere. But not in *this* house. We could all use a little more patience, whether we have a brand-new person in our charge or not. Too bad it can't be sold or bought. Earned, though, and grown, I think so.
- An Amazon "So You'd Like To..." List. Lastly, I think every new mom and dad breathes a sigh of relief when they first hear themselves dispensing parenting advice to someone even more clueless than they are. Pretending you know what you're doing -- and are even remotely qualified to offer tips to others -- is not only fun, it's a comfort and a privilege I wish for everyone. New parents and nonparents alike.
I hope this list helps you out.
