Now it's dad's turn

The breast pump has arrived. I don't know who's more excited mom or Emily. Now I get to participate in the feeding process. It's kind of strange to open the fridge and see a shelf of your wife's milk. I want to go get a bunch of little milk cartons to put it in. Mom didn't take kindly to being called the Dairy Queen. Think I need a new nickname.

Emily is just starting to figure out that the face is the place to look. She'll study your face for minutes on end, watching for something; and when you get just the right combination of raised eyebrows, wrinkled nose and puckered lips you're rewarded with her smile. The greatest gift that you could ever get.

Dad.

damned if you do, damned if you don't

Since when did we need the advice of so many experts to help us take care of a baby? The latest one promotes the fact that Madonna uses his advice. I wonder if he was the one to advise her to wear a couple of gold plated traffic cones as a bra? The best part of all this advice is that none of these people agree with one another. That way you can pick and choose whichever system, or versions or parts of a system that suit your needs and apply them to the baby; which leaves you in the exact same place as if you had never read any of the books in the first place.

Dad

date night

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for watching Emily Grace so mom and dad could have a night out. Night being defined here as two hours of nobody crying. It's nice to be able to sit and talk about things other than the baby; but, it's even better to get back and see her beautiful little face.

Dad

1.25 months, she doesn't look a day over 5 weeks

Emily is just entering that age where she is recognizing mom, dad and everyone else. Dad is all talk and no action, mom actually feeds me; everyone else is just scary. We may have also reached the point where smiles cannot all be attributed to gas; a few maybe.... that's my girl.

Love,
Dad

time flies when you don't sleep

I know Emily Grace everyday has become Emily Grace once a week; I guess that's what happens when a new little person comes into your life. I don't know whether it's the rose colored glasses that help you forget that you didn't sleep the last two times you did this with Emily's sisters. I'll get back to this episode in a little while. Emily's sister needs crickets for her lizards.

Dad

happy birthday

One month old today! No longer hours, days or even weeks; now we measure Emily's time in months. We might slip with a "six weeks old" in a few weeks but from now on Emily will move from months to years, our little girl is growing up. Still not sleeping, but growing up anyway. Mom demands a correction here! Emily does sleep. It's just getting her to sleep. What's the difference I say? With either scenario you're still up half the night. It's a good thing she's so darn cute. Emily, not mom. Mom is beautiful.

Love,
Dad

more pictures, a lot less sleep

That's a whole lot of Emily! Her sister likes the macro setting on the camera. Can you tell? Give Emily's sister credit for not using a flash at this distance. That's why the focus is soft.

Dad

more pictures, less sleep

Guess which view we see most often?

I know I'll get no sympathy for this complaint but here goes. Technology is killing me. Emily now sleeps in her own room; because her room is on the other side of the house we have a baby monitor. When Emily's big sisters were babies they slept in their own rooms, that were across the hall and we didn't need monitors. Actually it was so long ago that baby monitors hadn't been invented yet. So, now that I have the monitor every breath, sigh and hiccup is broadcast into our bedroom all night long. Here's where it gets tricky, Emily has been sleeping for six hours at night; for a three week old baby that's great, too great in fact. When Emily crossed the three hour mark we were happy; at four hours ecstatic; at five hours worried, now I'm awake waiting for the monitor to make a sound, any sound, give me a hiccup; at six hours I couldn't stand it any more and went and woke up the baby. Problem solved; until I re-appeared back in the bedroom with a baby in tow. Try explaining to mom. Next time I'll just go slep in the baby's room.

Dad