Adventures of a Family

Happy Jonah and Happy Dad So, if you have been following the blog at all you know that each Monday Hallie sings with the city's symphonic choir. Little Jonah was lucky enough to hear many practices and performances from his front row seat in the womb. Now, however, he is out of the womb and in my care on Monday nights. This week was the third such event. The other two times were pure disaster. This Monday things worked though. I trained hard for the week leading up to this moment. I gave him a bottle a few times, learned to do anything and everything in my arsenal to help him to be comfortable. This includes, baby talk, bjorn front carrier while walking around the house and neighborhood, dancing, singing, puppet shows, mime acts, music, outside, inside, rocking, diaper changes, clothing changes, transcendental meditation, promised trips to Disney World . Maybe not some of these but you get the idea. I worked hard for those 4 hours and it paid off. Jonah smiled for...

Well Monday was another blow to my fatherhood self-esteem. Hallie went off to choir and 10 minutes later Jonah busted into some blood curdling screams. So I busted into action and checked all of the things that I have learned so far. Diaper, bored, clothing, cold, hot, hungry, too noisy, too quiet, rocking, jiggling, bouncing, swaying, Neglect-O-Matic... He went on for an hour and 40 minutes and I thought I was going to lose my mind. He became so distraught that all that crying worked him into a serious frenzy of flailing arms and even a hot and clammy head. That's when I called Hallie and left one of the most pathetic messages of my life. The most pathetic message being the time I called my dad from college bawling about my first girl friend cheating on me with her english TA. My dad rushed to my aid at 2 in the morning and brought me home. I spent the next 4 days at home with a broken heart and some good home cooked food. I wish Hallie had saved the message because I woul...

I thought I should write a little something today, but it's difficult to know what that should be. So many changes have taken place and I think I'm still processing. Unfortunately my brain has a bad habit of having to think things over for sometimes weeks before I come with definitive conclusions. Anyway-I'm babbling. So the days with Jonah have been great. He is pretty much literally attached to me all day either in the carrier, breastfeeding, or just hanging out playing. When Michael gets home around 4PM and takes Jonah for a walk, I literally feel anxiety-not that I think Michael will drop him or anything, but it's almost as though someone has just run off with one of my limbs and I'm not sure how I'm going to get along without it for an hour. Jonah still sleeps a lot- about 7 hours during the day, so I don't see a whole lot of him yet, but the smiles have slowly day by day been getting more and more frequent and bigger and bigger. We have been having the...

Here's another image of Jonah and his new friend Boris. Boris was born in the same hospital room and bed Jonah was born in just a day earlier. We're sure they are destined to become best buddies! Also I think this is the first time Jonah's smile has been captured on film. He's been smiling now for a couple weeks.

I just have to put up this photo because Jonah's first friend, Boris (Bee Bao), looks so darn cool. Man... Babies sure are cute.

All things worth doing are challenging and have tough moments. That is why some people never try new things and others thrive off the challenge and tough moments. I like to think that I am in the latter group. The only difference is that this new challenge makes everything else pale in comparison both in challenges and importance. And nothing at all can make your entire being feel as happy as seeing the child, no matter what their current disposition. It is that momentary sense of my own innocence that is addictive. I want that feeling all the time.

Today I had a revelation. Of course Hallie has been thinking this since the very beginning; I wish that I could take each and every moment of Jonah's life and catalog everything about it. My feeling, his sounds, expressions and flailing, glimpses of learning in his eyes, his smell, the weather, the junk mail that came that day, the music we listened to together, the feeling that I forgot to take a breath while staring at his face ... Absolutely everything. I want to be able to call those moments up and step into them. Maybe even a way to step from one moment to another instantly and note the change. It isn't that I wish he could stop growing and be exactly like he is today. I want tomorrow too. I want to feel like I felt yesterday, feel like I feel today and be surprised by all of the emotions that are to come.

"What a failure." My thought as I reflected on my first time alone for 4 hours with Jonah. It went something like this. Tried to go for a walk at 5 pm to calm him and get him to sleep. It rained suddenly and we had to turn back. Jonah would not sleep. Maybe he is bored. Play with him. Tummy time. Make idiotic faces in the mirror to get his attention. Dance around to reggae tunes while holding Jonah. Didn't work. Just kind of annoyed him. Begins to cry now. Maybe he needs his diaper changed. Prepare to change his diaper. He cries more. Get the clothes and diaper off and the new diaper ready. He gets red in the face. Clean his bottom and other goodies. He pees on me. He cries louder. Maybe he is cold. Swaddle him tightly. No luck He must be hungry. Prepare the bottle for only the third time of use. Give him the bottle. He doesn't want it. He continues to cry and is now choking on all the milk that never made it into his belly only dribbled from t...

it is so hard... I can smell his baby skin in my nostrils while driving to work... I unconsciously rock back and forth while alone Even sounds of inanimate objects remind me of my boy After 4 weeks with Jonah and Hallie I returned to work this week. I have been trying to think of examples to give you an idea of what beautiful Jonah has done to my psyche. So here is a list of some of the things I incorporated into my first days back to work as a fourth and fifth grade teacher. Language Arts- Correct the grammar and punctuation of the following sentences: i and jonah where walking to the park on saturday afternoon do not you think jonah is the cutest boy in the world Writing- Write a story explaining how Jonah got the name Timetraveler as a middle name. Math- Solve the following math problem. Show your work and explain how you got your answer: For every .5 hours of feeding, Jonah sleeps for 1.25 hours. If every other feeding results in a diaper change, and each diaper change tak...