July 2011
28 posts
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WatchWomb With A View: Part One
This is Alfie on his changing table. He is literally never happier or more expressive than when staring in this direction.
Now, I’m sure you’re just dying to see what he’s looking at. Can you see what all the excitement’s about?
-bp
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one question everyone always asks
Are you getting any sleep (yet)?
The answer is no.
-ms
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En Media Scrabble
Remember that Scrabble game we got halfway through?
It’s still sitting on the table, untouched. 12 days later.
Will we ever finish anything again, or is parenting simply the art of living en media res?
-bp
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Advice I got from my boss
Parenting is…
Every time you think you can’t take something anymore, it will end, and a new thing will come around.
-ms
Finally Found Happiness: A Mother's Prayer for... →
babysarai:
First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.
May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.
When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half and stick with Beer.
Guide her, protect her when...
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Gripe water?
I’ve got a gripe. Baby Grace was gas-crying all yesterday (wailing until she farted), so we gave her some gripe water. The result? She got a rash—little red dots all over her back and stomach. What gives, gripe water? Mommy’s Bliss, you say? -ms
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An Ambient Birth Story →
Here’s my latest column installment for the Good Men Project. I followed Matt’s lead, and attempted to tell a birth story. -bp
[…] The room is swallowed in a darkness that somehow seems to cast a mottled green hue off the vinyl recliner I am trying not to sleep on. My wife Natalie is on the bed next to me, an ancient, matriarchal pain laying into her every ten minutes or so....
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Too much?
Is there too much on this blog about poop? It’s hard to know where to draw the line. -s
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“Yes! I see butter!”
– -my wife, checking my son’s diaper. I don’t think I need to tell you what “butter” refers to.
-bp
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The growth of the baby
My in-laws keep stretching the baby’s limbs so she won’t have typical short Korean legs. Will this work? -ms
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10 Things Every New Father Should Know →
My latest column in the Good Men Project, with advice from our first 2 weeks with the baby. -ms
1. You might not be able to film the birth. You probably didn’t even know you wanted to. Before your wife went into labor, you thought birth videos were at best indulgent, at worst disgusting. Now you are holding one of your wife’s legs wide and the nurse is holding the other, and the doctor will...
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Our Saturday Night
goes like this:
a hot dog, a boiled egg, half of a game of scrabble, bed by 9:30.
-bp
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“She farted so loud she shocked herself!”
– The first thing my wife said to me this morning. -MS
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Mommy versus Daddy
There’s definitely something different in the way Grace loves us. I can’t help being jealous. Those 9 months of her absorbing my wife’s body to make her own body … must have been a serious bonding experience. Sometimes I’ll be holding Grace and she’ll start crying for no reason (i.e. diaper, check; food, check) and my wife will take her and she’ll stop...
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“My hands smell like baby right now.”
– MS
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Nerves. Are. Shot.
I now know what it means when people say "my nerves are shot." All patience and survivalist attention is directed at my child. As a result, my unexpected rage gets taken out on weird, sometimes inanimate things when no one's around to hear. Here's a list of things that have followed swears recently.
!^@%ing: magnets!
!^@%ing: red truck!
!^@%ing: aphids!
!^@%ing: blueberry smoothie!
!^@%ing: poached egg!
!^@%ing: water! Why can't I just carry water without !^@%ing spilling everything all over the !^@%ing place!
-bp
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Waiting...& Waiting →
“Waiting for the Email That Will Change My Life.” Pretty much everything I’ve written for The Good Men Project has been about the baby in some way. Well, this is the first piece that isn’t. But, it’s about being unemployed, and a lot of the anxiety in this piece comes from the fact that I’m in the most desperate job-search of my life…with a newborn in...
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We No Longer Make Sense
BP: Yuck. The Cocheco River looks exceptionally brown today.
Wife: (winking like the mother in Arrested Development) You should go do laundry in it!
BP: What?
Wife: (laughs. In that way that says: the baby has finished feeding on my sanity)
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Breast cheek
Wife: She's sucking my cheek!
MS: Because it looks like a boob?
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Remember the dad from Calvin and Hobbes?
Today was baby Grace’s due date. I’m going to keep telling her the fireworks are for her until she stops believing me.
-ms
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One Father's Birth Story →
The doctor is a balding man with a balding man’s sense of humor. He goes over our options, though options are not so much options as explanations. The doctor will stick a pill inside my wife to soften her cervix. The nurse gives her some mesh underwear like the lining of a man’s bathing suit, and they comment on comfort and the size of the pad to catch the water. This will be a long morning....
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Music (& new baby) column debuts for The Good Men... →
“They Aren’t Playing Our Song.” Wrote this before Alfie was born, so it sounds a little dated in places. This is my debut as a columnist for GMP. Enjoy!
-bp
