The Wasians and the Rest of Us: February 2010

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Dads don't know sh. . ..

I have recently started to notice something. . . people think dads of infants are dumb. When eating lunch with some coworkers, one of my more outspoken (in an annoying way, but I didn't say that) female coworkers pointed out that when a child is dropped off in less than cute clothes, the teachers will generally comment "Dad must have dressed him/her." This sort of tipped me off that I should look around and see if this perception of dad's is true. . . and sadly it is. I will give you some examples:

1) The day after Emma's blowout which the director of Emma's daycare deemed "one of the biggest she has ever seen" she commented to Lela that I had a look on my face that said I didn't know what to do when it all went down. Um, I am sorry, when you pull your daughter out of the jumperoo and find poop all over her and you have no idea where any of the things are to change her, what the heck are you supposed to do!!! BTW - we pay you so you can change her when she is there, so you should have gotten to it more quickly!

2) Today when Emma was getting her booster flu shot, I asked the nurse if I needed to take her pants all the way off or just pull it down and got the "duh, how can you not know the answer to that" look. I am sorry, generally you stick my daughter with 4-5 needles at once in what looks like a Nazi experiment, and that's after we have made you entertain your daughter in a small room for 20 min praying she doesn't get mad before we com. So this whole one little stick and then done thing is new to me. Then after the stick came she acted like I didn't know how to comfort Emma and then just walked off with a "typical dad" look on her face. Hello Miss snooty nurse. I am the guy who has taken care of a sick baby while PwC sucks the life out of her mom for the last 2 weeks. I think I can handle your needle prick.

I am sure there are a lot of other examples, but as I am a guy my mind and attention are much more focused on things like sports and well sports so I don't have time to notice every detail of every day. Anyway, my point is well they are probably right to a certain extent. This whole parenting an infant thing doesn't come as naturally to us. Maybe its due to the fact that I don't have a 24 hr milk buffet attached to my body. Maybe its due to the fact that I didn't spent 9 months of 24/7 with our Baby. Maybe its because my daughter has more hair on her head than me. Regardless, we dad's try hard. We will come in handy, I promise. Like when the first boy comes to pick up Emma for a date and needs to be afraid for his life. Or the first time motherly instincts take effect and Lela is ready to physically injure another parent or child after one of Emma's classmates is mean to her. Just you wait people who think I look lost right now . . .okay maybe I do have a look that screams I don't know what the heck I am doing on my face sometimes, but I can figure it out. And I know my pastels, so don't question my dressing of Emma.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sick Lil Girl

As most parents experience early on, we have had a series of colds go through our house the past few months. Everybody talks about it, the "I always hated having sick kids" comment is right up there with the "enjoy your sleep!" comment that people give you when your pregnant with your first child as far as frequency goes. Truth be told Emma has been a trooper the various times she has had colds. She is generally just dopey and a lil volatile, but all in all she is just a muted Emma. This cold seems to have been worse though, again the symptoms are similar. She refuses any form of food except milk, it used to be fun to feed her new things but now she just looks at us like we are asking her to eat monkey brains. She is only good for about 10 min of play time whereas usually she can just mess with various things for an hour. She wakes up about 5 times each night and screams for a minute before going back to sleep. Today we even had our first time with her throwing up milk, which absolutely broke our hearts. She primarily wants to be held and most naps she prefers to be held for part if not the entire time.

The cold has showed other things. Emma has a clear preference for Lela when she doesn't feel well. There is something about getting the milk straight from the tap that comforts her and helps to relax her. She will give me occasional smiles, but most of her smiles come with her mommy in the room. There's something about it that just seems to make her more at ease. As a Dad, its great to watch this interaction, as it makes both of them light up. Well its great except for when Lela's in busy season and its twice as hard for me to comfort Emma and when she won't take a bottle because she knows if she cries enough I will interrupt Lela from working and make her feed Emma. Yep, she's that smart already! As I stated previously she also prefers to be held which makes the cold when we are busy good and bad. She does go to bed earlier, which is helpful for me and makes Lela feel like she is missing less. But when she is up she is 100000 times needier and there is very little leaving her alone for more than a minute. Anyway those are my humble observations.

Here's some pics I took of Emma today

Again, the name on the ball says it all

Happy with her ball

Preparing for a dribbling lesson . . with the ball, not her mouth

Either going to eat the ball or pass it to someone else. . .

Glad that working on ball security is working for her, I don't see any other infants getting it out of her hands

Few pics of our new house going up! Not much for now!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The end is near. . .

It appears as though the end of life as we know it in our house is near. . Emma has begun the crawling process. She hasn’t yet moved forward but moves herself backward several feet and can spin and apparently that is the last thing that goes down before the forward army crawling begins! Everyone keeps telling us not to be exciting as it’s a lot harder to keep track of the kiddo, but still, every little development is very exciting. She also loves it when we stand her up next to things and can go for 10 min standing with the lean, so she’s ready to get around in the world! On other fronts, Emma has also started to pick up more and more on the eating front. Thus far she enjoys green beans, squash and peas. Feeding time is always interesting as Emma is never real sure about starting in and you have to put some food on her lips before she decides to dig in. Emma also loves to laugh and giggle, especially when Lela comes home and helps her do some upside down breakdancing (true story!). While Emma likes me and occasionally thinks I am funny (especially when I do “So Big” which I stole from grandma Huebner), but she is enamored with Lela. The second Lela comes in the door from working out or from work if I pick up, Emma’s eyes light up and she has even started reaching for her. As a Dad, nothing could be better. . . well on par would be a Hawkeye national championship someday in football or having Emma win a gold medal in gymnastics, but I will take this to tide me over until those things have a chance to occur. . .

Life right now is pretty hectic in the Huebner house. Here’s an average day at this point, I know I know, woah is me!

4:30 Mike gets up and feeds Cooper and heads to gym
5:00 Lela gets up for the morning pumping. Lela preps all the bottles for the day and goes through mail
6:00 Mike gets home from gym, Lela leaves for gym. While Lela is gone, mike makes the morning smoothie, coffee, cleans up the living room kitchen if need be and gets to shower
7-7:15ish Lela arrives home from gym, Emma gets up rearing and ready to go. She drinks her milk while Lela showers and then enjoys some jumperoo time while Lela gets ready. Meanwhile Mike is usually finishing up anything else around the house that needs to get done for the day
8ish we both get out the door and off to work!
6ish Arrive home with Emma from daycare. We try to switch pick up days, once busy season is over Lela will do a majority of it again but for now it’s a daily battle
6-8 Emma eats, plays, does whatever else. If Lela didn’t pick up she arrives home around 7 and takes care of Emma. Meanwhile Mike usually washes the outfit that Emma has pooped through. You think I am kidding but Emma has hit a 90%+ of pooping on outfits in the last month. This would be good if it were a free throw percentage, but alas it is not! Anyway, Mike also washes the daily bottles, which has recently increased as the daycare dishwasher isn’t up to code or something. Oh and somewhere in there, we both ate or inhaled some sort of food way faster than one should.
8-sleeptime-One or both of us works to try to catch up. Cooper is also generally being a pain during this time as he lacks the ability to lie down out of his crate for more than 30 seconds. Mike tries to get to bed by 9:30, Lela by 10 after her evening pumping. Lately these bed times hasn’t happened which isn’t helping things!

Anyway, I know I am whining, just wanted to give you a glimpse into what feels like Groundhog Day (as in the movie with Bill Murray). I thought it wouldn’t get worse than last year as both of us were in public accounting , but it seems to have! The weekends are even more fun with when one of us isn’t working us running out of the house for showings so people can not buy our house. Nope, not bitter at allJ

Anyway, let’s get this train moving back in the positive direction, the reason I posted that average day (other than to be a martyr:) is to say that in spite of that craziness, our lives are so much better with Emma in them and we are thankful for that. While it’s a scramble now that we have Emma, we can not imagine what life was like before her. Every laugh can brighten the worst day ever and just seeing her explore the world is way more entertaining and fulfilling than anything we have ever done. We don’t have time to read much any more, we don’t have time to watch tv or movies much (though we do sneak in a little Lost or 24 some days to help cool down) but those don’t seem important. All that is important is getting to experience the laughs of Emma, or getting to see how proud of herself she is when she holds herself up or getting to see those beautiful eyes in the morning when she is laying in bed prepping for her day. Every bath we get to give her when she splashes the water everywhere or diaper change where she pees everywhere isn’t a pain but something that is a joyful experience. Someday, washing her clothes after she poops in them will be fun, but I am still bitter about this whole every day trek she is in:) Having her has made us realize what it really means when people talk about kids and how it’s the hardest but best thing they ever did. . and we are only 6.5 months into it! I digress, my point is we are so blessed to have Emma, she is such a great, easy going, cute (at least we think so) baby. We thank God for giving us this gift every day, and we try to not screw it up.

We have some vids of Emma we will post one of these days so you can get a glimpse of the goofball she is.