Fat-dad is back!

Howdy gang,

                Sorry for my absence. I have a solid working theory that The Crimson Plus Sign has been trying to kill me with how much I have been working lately. A week ago, I actually got so upset that I almost quit right then and there. I picked up the Ewok from daycare, came home, my wife got home shortly after and we were just going to chill on the couch and have dinner. But then I got a phone call from work asking me to come in. So I gave Da Butt to my wife and hopped in my car and worked until about 1am. I was just so furious that I might be missing out on something new that my daughter is doing. It seems that every single day she is discovering something new, more on that in just a minute. I was just fit to be tied with how angry I was. I ended up yelling the f-bomb so loud that I scared the shit out of the Ewok. She had no idea why Dad was so upset, but as it turns out, babies are extremely sensitive to emotions. So she figured if Dad was freaking out so bad, that she should too. Not the most helpful in that situation, but I appreciated her commiserating with me. Anyways... back to the good stuff.

                So much has changed since my last post. I mentioned that she had started rolling from her back to her stomach. My wife and I were so happy, proud, and excited. But what we didn’t realize at the time was that her rolling would turn all diaper changes in to some sort of shit covered rodeo. She just doesn’t lie still any more. Not that she ever sat patiently anyways, but now it is seriously like have to hogtie a little calf. And she giggles about it! Like a little shithead. She is plotting my demise, I am sure of it.

                That remind me, we have been able to get some awesome laughs and giggles now too. I thought I was getting good ones before, but now I know what real baby giggle are. She loves raspberries, not the berry but when you blow on her tummy. The move in my routine that really gets her laughing is when I stick my tongue out and shake my head. She thinks that that is the funniest damn thing. Man, how great would it be to be that easily entertained? She has also started to mimic a little bit now. If I make “ah” or “oh” sounds she makes them back at me and giggles. My wife also was able to catch a nice video of me throwing my head back and laughing and Elizabeth doing the same thing. Don’t know why she thought it was so funny, but I am a pretty goofy looking guy so I guess it makes sense. I will be posting the video soon on the Fatterhood Facebook page, try to ignore my massive man cans though.

                She has also started reaching for objects! Not just my beard any more, thank God! She will roll over and see her ball or crinkly square and grab them. She really loves her giraffe too. It is a super popular infant toy right now, I think its name is Sophie and you can find these things everywhere. She loves to chew on it and the squeeker makes her giggle. I don’t remember if we bought it or if it was a gift, but I suggest that you pick one up if you are expecting, it is worth every single penny. My wife is becoming increasingly certain that she will have some teeth coming in soon too. She has started chewing on pretty much everything and I can’t believe how something so tiny can produce this much drool. Seriously, it’s like carrying around a tiny, hairless St. Bernard. Every shirt that I own now has a nice little drool stain on it, which I must admit, is markedly better than the spit-up stain that was there before.

                Daycare (or the CDC lab as I like to call it) has been going very well for Elizabeth. She seems to do really well while she is there and we really like the teachers. Apparently she has refused to show them that she rolls though and I am getting the idea that the teachers think we are making it up. Bullshit! They still get easy diaper changes! Not fair at all. One of my fatherhood fears has come true though at daycare. I knew that if I had a little girl that I was going to have to learn how to put together an outfit and eventually learn to do hair. Luckily right now, she hardly has any hair and with as hot as it has been, onesies seem to be the most comfortable for her. But as it turns out, the teachers have already been able to figure out the days that Dad gets her ready. According to my wife, they just assumed that she didn’t pick out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle outfit, or the Sandlot onesie that says “You’re killing me smalls”, or any of the other goofy outfits that I find. I have a friend that has 1 little girl of his own and 2 others from his partner’s previous relationship. This dude is the Yoda of dads. He knows how to properly coordinate an outfit, he taught himself how to French-braid, when the girls saw the new Star Wars movie he learned how to do the triple bun that Rey wears! It appears as though I will have to step-up my dad game as Elizabeth gets a little older. I don’t mind if they figure out that Dad got her ready, I just don’t want it to be super obvious.

                It really has been amazing how fast things change in a week and a half. Every single day she learns something new. She accidentally discovered her toes today and just stared at them confused for a few minutes. As an adult I have become so jaded to discovering new things or for that matter, enjoying things that I love anyways. I think I need to try to step back and see things through Elizabeth’s eyes for a while. Every day is a new adventure, there is always something new to discover or learn, and I need to enjoy the little things more often. I think I will draw the line at giggling at my toes for 5 minutes though, but maybe there is something there that I am just missing. Who knows?

                Although I am still nervous about the perils of fatherhood, so far the enjoyment that I have gotten out of it far outweighs any of my doubts or fears. I must admit that the newborn stage was not my favorite. We were still learning each other’s rhythms, schedules, etc. but right now is just a blast. Seeing a personality start to form is amazing! And now that she has some actual head control, I don’t feel like I am trying to play with a porcelain doll any more. I am confident that I will continue to make mistakes, but I don’t think that I will cause any lasting harm either. I think I am finding my groove.

                I have a few other posts that are in draft form that I plan on getting out throughout the week, so check back soon. Or…you can like Fatterhood on Facebook and I will alert you. Shameless plug, I know. As always, thank you for reading and PROST!

Come with me if you want to live.

Howdy gang,

                My god do I love my wife! As I said in the last post, our little Ewok hasn't been sleeping the greatest or at least as great as she was before, so we have been suffering a little bit because of it. Since Saturday I think I only got a combined total of 16 hours of sleep in 4 days and that is including naps. I was an absolute zombie by the time I got home from work last night. My wife the saint, was kind enough to just take on baby duty pretty much all night and even gave me back rub! I feel asleep on the couch while watching Netflix at around 11pm and slept straight through to 9 am this morning. It was glorious! I feel so recharged! Or at least I did until I realized that I have to sit through a 6 hour training session today. Nothing drains your battery faster than sitting through a 6 hour PowerPoint presentation. Blurg!

                Anyways… this whole not sleeping thing has finally given me a real answer to a question that I get asked all of the time now, which is “What’s it like being a Dad now?”.  Having a baby is kind of like being handcuffed to a t-rex that will explode if you take the handcuffs off. All the while, the t-rex is using enhanced interrogation techniques on you and somehow you end up developing Stockholm syndrome and you don’t ever want to take the handcuffs off. That might be a lot to digest…so let me explain so you don’t think that I am secretly (or in this case, publicly) loathing my child’s very existence, which simply isn't the case.

                Ewok is like a tiny little t-rex to me. If you have seen Jurassic Park you probably remember that the t-rex’s vision is based on movement (fun-fact: current theory is that t-rex would have had amazing vision as it was the apex predator of its time) so is Elizabeth’s. That and sound. My God! I stir in bed or make a gentle cough and boom her eyes spring open and she starts looking for me. All of this is because she is totally dependent on my wife and I for literally everything! Hence the handcuff and explosion metaphors. If we weren't around she would literally starve to death in a pile of her own shit. It is a lot of pressure and I’m not even the one who produces the milk!

                As a parent you don’t get to have a legit schedule any more. If she gets hungry, we have to stop and feed her. If she fills a diaper, we have to stop and change her. If she is wide awake at 2am, you can try to go to sleep, but more than likely you will be forced to entertain her. These are 2 enhanced interrogation techniques used at GITMO! Sleep deprivation and uncertain schedules. Couple that with “stress positions” like HAVING to walk around and bounce a little infant instead of being able to sit in my recliner after a 14 hour day at work and now we have a recipe for torture! I would also argue that being pissed and pooped on comes a little too close to water boarding for my comfort. That’s right gang, I am saying that most infants could in fact work at GITMO torturing terrorists and I think most would crack.

                All of this being said, now we have the Stockholm syndrome metaphor which is probably the most important. If you unfamiliar with it, it is a phenomenon during hostage or kidnapping situations where the person that is being held captive starts to identify with the captor and will sometimes even help or claim to love that person or persons. And that is pretty much being a parent in a nutshell. Most parents I know are constantly tired, many are grumpy, many have been pooped and peed on, most are wearing shirts with spit-up on it, and we still love it. It is just a mind trip. This type of behavior is totally unacceptable from other adults yet somehow; you still end up loving your child even more for simply following societal rules. They learn to NOT cough in someone else’s mouth. They learn to NOT fill their pants. They learn to NOT spit up everywhere. They learn to NOT just cry for no reason. And as a parent, you end up being proud that you taught them to act like a human being and not some little asshole. Well…at least that’s the plan. Some people obviously never caught many of those lessons as children.

                I will say that this whole experience has been made as easy as possible because of my wife. She claims that I help out all the time, which may be true, but I still feel pretty worthless most days. Having someone to tag-team with is pretty much the only way to get anything accomplished. My dad was around yet when I was an infant and from all accounts (including my Mother’s) he was quite helpful. So I am glad she had that help during the bonding years, but I am still unsure how the hell she was able to raise me in to a half-way presentable adult from the age of 3 on up by herself! I mean, she had help, sure, but the majority of it was all on her own. She worked 3 jobs and went back to school AND kept me alive. That is just nuts to me. Truly, hats off and a big glass raised up to any parent that is doing this on their own.

                Even with all of its ups and downs, twists and turns, successes and failures, I wouldn't trade being a Dad for anything. I joke around a lot, but you should have seen my face the first time I got her to laugh or the first time I got to see her roll over! I have never been so proud of myself or of another human being than I am when my daughter does something new. I am pretty sure I am going to throw a huge blowout (pun intended) shindig as soon as she is potty trained though. My wife claims I shouldn't get so grossed out when I get her poop or pee on me because “It’s just breast milk, at least you know where it came from”, but by her reasoning she shouldn't be grossed out by my own bodily functions since it’s mainly Taco John’s, Wendy’s, and Pabst, so at least she knows where it came from. Gross.

                I am still working on some rough drafts for a few other posts, so please check back soon. I had a request for more pictures as well and I will be happy to oblige. But…if you check out Fatterhood on Facebook then I usually post at least one picture a day *hint hint*. As always, thank you all for reading and PROST!

You're not my real dad!

Howdy gang,

                Da Butt is feeling all better now. She is tip-top and solid trouble again as usual. Last week she also started rolling. She surprised the hell out of my wife. My wife set her on the couch while she did a few little jobs in the kitchen and when she came back to just to check on her she had flipped to her stomach. So she is officially mobile now. Doesn't that just suck? Gone are the glory days of leaving her somewhere and knowing that she would be right there when you returned. This has also lead to some interesting nights now at our house. Once the little ones start to turn like that, you’re not supposed to swaddle up their arms any more to reduce the chance of SIDS. Now that she has her arms free at night for the first time, she tends to whack herself in the melon. It reminds me of trying to put an octopus to bed. Just limbs flapping around and chaos. So, gone also are the sleeping all the way through the night glory days for us. It is a real drag. But we had it pretty easy up to this point, so I guess I can’t really complain either.

                I have been thinking a lot about the future yet again. My wife and I grew up with 2 very different parenting styles. Not saying one was better than the other, just that they were very different. I have a feeling that this will lead to some pretty good arguments once Elizabeth gets older. My wife grew up in a more traditional household, if that still exists. She had a mother and father in the home, with 1 older brother and 1 older (much much much older…lol) sister. They really are as close to a Norman Rockwell painting as you can get nowadays. I grew up in a “non-traditional” home. As I have written about before, I grew up as an only child to a single mother. My grandparents lived close by and I spent a lot of time there. We ended up having two very different relationships with our parents. For my wife, her parents were kind of judge, jury and executioner. If one made a rule, the other backed it, even if they didn’t really agree with it. More on that in a second. But in my house, I was brought in on decision making for the household. I was left to make some bad calls and then suffer the consequences. I like to explain that I was as close to a Latch-Key Kid as one can be while not suffering any child abuse.

                An example of the parenting my wife received is that when she was in college in Milwaukee, whenever she came home she would still have curfew. She was in her early 20’s, living alone, going to school, working full time, and we were engaged, but when she came home for the weekend…she couldn’t stay at my apartment. This was more her Mom’s rule and her Dad had to back the play. As much as I hated it at the time, I totally understand it now. Her Dad and I have always had a pretty solid relationship built on the concept that we know that we are different, but as long as I make his baby daughter happy…then he won’t shoot me. Pretty simple. Her mother, on the other hand, was convinced that I was only out to get in her daughter’s pants so the rule was set in place. I am pretty sure that her Dad couldn’t have given less of a shit if she stayed at my apartment, but he HAD to back the rule that was set by his wife.

                Now a great example of the parenting that I received was my very first high school party. I didn’t lie to my Ma. I told her I was going to a party and that it would more than likely go pretty late, since school was out, I didn’t have a curfew. She told me to have fun and call if I needed anything. Now I said I didn’t lie to my Ma…but I didn’t technically tell her everything either. I was pretty confident that the party was going to have drinking there…but I wasn’t 100% sure, so I just didn’t mention it. I got to the party, had my few drinks, and ended up staying the evening since Wisconsin has pretty strict “not a drop” laws when you still have your restricted driver’s license. Now remember, I said I would be late…not overnight. I woke up with the sun and made my way back home. I snuck in to my house and made it to my bedroom only to find one of my Ma’s best friends sleeping in my bed. I poked her awake and asked what was up. She informed me that I was supposed to go and wake my Ma up. I woke her up and asked what was up yet again. That’s when she informed me, “I know you lied to me you little shit. You went to a drinking party, so I had Linda come over and we had too much to drink. I know that you weren’t stupid enough to drink and drive *she shot me that looked that said “if you did…I will kill you”. I hadn’t* but you still lied. You’re punishment is you have to make us both breakfast before you can finally go to bed. Bacon and eggs. And don’t ever lie to me again.”

                So I think you can see why we are already in disagreement on how to handle future issues. What I have learned from both sets of parents and from my friends with older children is that there is no rule book or operator’s manual for kids. What works for one kid, may not work for the next. Ever since we were in caves, parents have been forced to kind of figure this shit out on the fly. I am not sure if there is a right way to parent a child, but I am confident that there are many wrong ways to raise a child. It is a minefield to say the least.

                On a side note I feel that if you aren’t from Wisconsin, you may be raising an eyebrow at my mother’s cavalier attitude towards underage drinking. If you aren’t from here it is almost impossible to explain. Drinking is a part of life here. Even my wife’s parents allowed her small amounts of alcohol when she was young. It is a rite of passage here, it is part of the culture, and it is engrained in our day to day lives. It truly isn’t uncommon here to see a 12 year old have a beer at a wedding. You may have seen the infographic on Facebook where it shows towns that have more bars than grocery stores and there is clear out line of Minnesota, Wisconsin and pretty much Iowa and Illinois. My reaction was “why the hell would you need multiple grocery stores?” so please don’t get too uppity about that one.

                As always, I thank you for reading. I have a few more posts in the draft stages and I will be posting them soonish, so keep your eyes peeled. Check out Fatterhood on Facebook. And of course, prost!

Bam! You're pregnant!

Howdy gang,

                This post has been a long time in the making. I had kind of been avoiding it to be honest. In my fervor to get my blog up and running I had kind of skimmed over a rather important part of I and my wife’s story and ultimately, Elizabeth’s story. I will quit being so clandestine about this post’s topic very shortly, I promise, so just stay with me. I really wanted to make sure this whole thing was cool with my wife before I put it out on the world wide web and shared a very intimate detail of our personal life. After a rather short discussion, it was decided that any embarrassment (for lack of a better term) would be far outweighed by the potential good that it could do. So…here I go.

                It took my wife and I quite a long time to actually conceive. I can’t really speak for my wife on this one, but I was kind of embarrassed at the time and now I am totally over that. We had a few health obstacles to overcome in order to have our little Elizabeth. My wife was convinced that she needed to lose weight before we would even start trying. She had put on a few pounds while she was in college, but I will say that I would have still thought she was drop dead sexy even if she could take on Jabba The Hutt in a sumo match. And no, I am not just saying that because she is more than likely reading this right now. We were in our early 20’s, she had just finished school, we had just moved in together, had just gotten married, and we were establishing our careers. For many reasons it would have been poor timing at that time.

                I myself was also dead-set that people only have a tiny window to be young, dumb, and stupid and you should soak up every second of that time that you can. I still hold by that stand by the way, but once we got to be in our mid-twenties, I realized that we were already starting to settle down. I had let that window close. Not that particularly upset about that, but it is what it is I guess. I also have battled depression had was diagnosed with what my doc refers to as “high functioning social anxiety disorder”. For anyone that knows me, and even of those that don’t, I am sure that seems strange just given the very nature of this blog, let alone if you have ever had the misfortune of being at a party with me. I won’t get in to all of that as it is actually rather boring and had nothing really to do with this topic, but it was an obstacle. I would have good days and bad days. On a good day, I would be like “Hell yes let’s have a baby!” and then promptly drop my pants, sometimes in public. On my bad days, I wouldn’t want to get off the couch and baby making was quite literally the last thing on my mind. I won’t lie, I am still a wee bit concerned if I will be passing on this “genetic gift” to Elizabeth, but time will tell on that one.

                Once we got our ducks in a row and we decided to start trying. My wife went to the doctor and we found out that she has a tilt back uterus. Doc said that it wasn’t something that would prevent us from having children, but that it may make it a little harder (no pun intended…get it?). He told us to go at it the old fashioned way for at least a year. No pressure, just sex each other up and see what happens. Well a full year went by with plenty of sexing. I would even go so far as to say too much sexing. We weren’t trying to stress about it at all. We weren’t really checking cycles, or temperatures, or sperm counts. We said that we were just “not trying to NOT have kids”. Like I said, a full year went by and we still had nothing to show for it other than a lot of chaffing.

                We went to the doc again and this time my wife started taking a fertility medication. This whole deal terrified the hell out of me because these drugs increase your chances of having twins. I had only recently been okay with the idea of having 1 child and now there was a greater chance of having 2. Now I know what you are thinking. “But the chances are so slim”. And that’s true, but one of our friends went on the same drug and BOOM! Twins. So statistically it was a bullshit fear, but I did have that looming over my head.  Once she went on the fertility medication it was apparently game time. My wife tried to make it still chill for me, but now she was checking cycles and temps and she brought me home…the cup. I never did get my sperm count checked, obviously I must have swimmers, but I was really terrified at the time that I would have been the one responsible for not giving my wife a baby. In hindsight, I probably should have just done it. We had another full year of all of that. We were getting to the point where we were just getting stressed about it and we decided to give it one more month and then we would take a break from it for a while.  But then…

                We were in Iowa for a friend’s wedding. We had a pretty damn good time, but I am not sure if you have ever been in Iowa, there really isn’t anything to do. I know Iowa is the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk, but even he took a look around and said “Screw this!” and then shot himself in to space to sex up green women. At this point, not to get too graphic for anyone, but it was kind of just the fun stuff again. I was moving in to hangover mode and we just went for it before I passed out on the couch at home. A while later my wife suspected that she was pregnant and that is where we are pretty much caught up from the very first Fatterhood post.

                I write this because we had been on the verge of giving up. Not for ever, but for a while. It kind of shows that when you just kind of give up and go with the flow that stuff does actually tend to work out. My previous posts had given the impression that conceiving was a cakewalk for us. It had been a very private struggle during the whole process so many of our close friends had no idea. We had spoken with many friends and they would comment “Man, I just look at her and she gets pregnant. Am I right?”. I would nervously laugh and shoot my wife a look and we would always just drop it. We didn’t get mad because our friends didn’t know. But it was a strange mental state to be in while we were trying. We would be very happy for our friends and family having friends, but we were also incredibly jealous. I think I have done a very good job of letting you all know that I am an asshole by this point in my blog posts. I won’t lie, I have some people on Facebook only because I don’t have cable. They are total hot mess, shit shows and they are my entertainment.  It would eat at us though, that we waited until the time was right and we had our ducks in a row, and these damn mouth breathers were popping out kids left and right. Seriously, it was like watching a human t-shirt cannon shooting out kids. These are people that I don’t think should be able to legally drive a car and hear they are reproducing like Genghis Fucking Khan! (Fun fact, Genghis Khan had so many children that it is estimated that 16 million people alive today are his direct descendants. What a deadbeat dad.)  It was like watching the movie Idiocracy come to life! Again, you can put down your pitchforks; I know I am a dick.

                In short, this subject is somehow deemed as taboo. We were extremely lucky in the fact that we didn’t have to experience any miscarriages, which many of our friends have not been so lucky. It blows my mind that in 2016, speaking about reproductive health and related issues is still taboo. If you and or your partner are reading this and you are having trouble conceiving, I just want to say if you really want it then keep at it. Don’t be afraid to look at your options though. We were getting to the point of looking at the adoption process since we had kind of ruled out I.F. just with our own personal taste. Just promise me that if you are reading this and you a fucking moron that you will do the world a favor and put your genitals in the microwave and turn it on for about 5 minutes. Seriously, you are bumming the rest of us out.

                I hope that someone out there might have found this at least a little helpful or even inspirational. I hope it takes the stigma out of it. Just remember, if you are having trouble conceiving, just visit Iowa. As always, thank you for reading, don’t forget to stop by and like Fatterhood on Facebook, and PROST!

Outbreak!

Howdy gang,

                I am currently writing this post while sitting in my hotel bed, 3 hours away from home, sipping on my Ecto-cooler juice box (yes they are back!), and eating my Jurassic World fruit snacks and I am not sure how to feel. I still have a sick little Ewok at home. Which means that I am glad that I am not getting pooped on, thrown up on, coughed on, or just generally snotted on. But due to some weird twist of fate mixed with a serious dose of Oxytocin…I wish I was there. Boogers, poop and all.

 Our poor little peanut got sick over the weekend, as you are aware. She had seemed to be doing better for while, but my wife got a call from the daycare on Monday saying that they were pretty sure that she had pink eye. The silver lining to this was that we didn’t have to leave work to pick her up right away because she was the 3^rd or 4^th one in the room to show symptoms, so they assumed the damage had been done. I had to do a supply run to one of our blood mobiles which meant 6 hours on the road in a van that didn’t have working air conditioning in 90 degree heat, while I filled it with my McDonald’s induced farts the entire time. I rushed home as soon as I could and met my wife to pick her up from daycare. They said that if she could be treated yet that night, that there was a good chance that she would be able to come back to daycare the next day and neither of us would have to miss work. What a great thought.

We took her to our local Urgent Care since we couldn’t get in to our doc. She was doing ok, but her right eye was all goopy, had diarrhea, and was just generally not feeling great. So it was not emergent. We went in, got registered, went through triage and then we found out that children under a certain age must be seen in the E.R., not in Urgent Care. That really sucks for my insurance. Next time I will tell them that I have pink eye so that I can save the damn money. Anyways, we waited. And we waited. And we waited. Other people were starting to get all upset, but considering that we got pushed back due to a person with a stroke coming in, a obviously broken leg, and a small child that had apparently brained herself on a coffee table, my wife and I were okay with waiting. We were finally seen after about 2.5-3 hours and Doc came in and said, “Yep. It’s pink eye”. Well no shit. How long did you spend in school? Give me a damn script so that we can fill it and go home!

By this time it was 830 and we were in a mad dash to get the script filled because the doc and daycare said that if she had 3 applications of the ointment that she could go back to daycare and we wouldn’t have to miss any work. Well…miss isn’t the right word, but you get my meaning. Of course, the pharmacy was busy as all hell and there was some sort of complication with the script. So we waited about another 30-45 minutes before we could even leave there. Got home and we quickly did some math only to realize that either way one of us was going to have to stay home until we could get the other 2 applications in her eye. Tuesday I was the only person on call, but our scheduling department wasn’t sure where I was going to be sent, only that I was for sure getting called in. So my wife, the saint, called in to work and let me sleep in until I got the call saying that I didn’t have to be in until noon. I could have just stayed with her and dropped her off on my way to work!

I made it in and apparently one of our other mobiles had been cancelled due to a truck breaking down, so one of my amazing coworkers offered to work my shift for me so that I could pick up Da Butt and take her home and snuggle her. I took her up on that offer and grabbed the Ewok and we went home and snuggled on the couch. It seemed to do her a lot of good too. But later that night she started getting a stuffy nose. It became so stuffed that she couldn’t breathe right and so she had trouble sleeping. I am calling at least 25% bullshit though, because she didn’t seem to have any trouble sleeping as long as you were holding her. I ended up staying up until about 3am with her just rocking in my recliner and of course watching Supernatural.

I went to work on Wednesday and my wife was sending me picture updates most of the day. She seemed again to be doing ok, but when I got to the hotel and called my wife she informed me that the pink eye had spread to the other eye, that she had a pretty good cough going and was very sleepy and just generally upset. She has been pretty damn good natured though throughout this whole thing though. She fusses a little bit, but she just wants to be snuggled. That I can handle. I won’t get home until about 11p.m. on Thursday, but I plan on bolting home and getting some great daddy-daughter snuggles in on my recliner as soon as I possibly can.

Like I said before, daycare centers are just Petri-dishes, but they are a necessary evil. I would love to be in a situation where I didn’t have to work (or at least work a regular 9-5) and I could spend more time with her, but that just isn’t the case. My wife makes the real money, but I have the insurance. It seems as though we have painted ourselves in to quite the corner. In the meantime, I plan on just wearing a HAZ-MAT suit whenever I pick her up from daycare and then spraying everything we own with Lysol and bathing Elizabeth in Purell every night. If only those damn window licker kids would stop blowing their snot bubbles on everything. Gross.

As per usual, thank you all for reading, check out Fatterhood and Facebook, don’t be afraid to comment or drop me a line. And until next time…Prost!

Life is not a waiting room...

Howdy ya’ll,

                A few updates before I get in to the meat of this post’s topic. For those that follow Fatterhood on Facebook, The Ewok was sick over the weekend. Not quite sure what the deal was, but she was shitting like she had a firehouse hiding in her butt. It was constant. She projectile threw up while in her swing as well. I felt so bad for the little lady, but she stayed generally pretty good natured throughout the whole ordeal. She was very smiley, very snuggly, EXTREMELY hungry, and even started doing some vocalizations. At least she didn’t have a fever or anything, so small favors there. My wife thinks it might have been something that she ate that upset her stomach, or even perhaps one of us didn’t wash our hands well enough after collecting the chicken eggs from the coop. I think she picked up something from daycare. Which isn’t the daycare’s fault in my opinion, all daycare facilities are Petri-dishes. Our seems very clean, but when I walked in to Elizabeth’s room to pick her up last week, there was a crib-midget just going around and licking things! Gross.

                Daycare has been going pretty well though. I had a light work week last week and was able to pick up Da Butt every day. I did have 1 issue though on Tuesday. I picked her up from her classroom and they had a few things in her cubby. There was a bill and a schedule which I promptly folded up and put in the diaper bag. But there was also her first piece of artwork! They had taken paint and dipped her feet in it to make a picture of fireworks. It really was adorable. I left it out so that it wouldn’t get folded or crumpled. I took Elizabeth, the diaper bag, the car seat, the leftover milk, and the art out to the car and loaded up. It was while I was loading everything up that Elizabeth started to have a meltdown. I got her in the car fast and started to book it home. It was after we were home for about 2 hours that I realized that I had left the artwork on the outdoor patio table while I was loading everything else up. I prayed that someone would find it and bring it inside as it was starting to storm. Went to pick her up the next day and my prayer was answered…kind of. It had been found, but the water-based paint had pretty much all been washed away by the rain. I told my wife and she just laughed when she saw it. We decided to keep it so we can tell her that she just really sucked at art when she was younger. What an idiot.

                Now for the meat of the post, I knew eventually that my lack of spirituality was going to come to a head eventually once I had a child. I did my time in a Catholic school. I went from 1^st to 8^th grade and was Confirmed while in public high school. I went through the motions until my grandmother passed away when I was 20. Remove the Catholic school and my wife had a very similar experience. We both just went through the motions because we are from a small town and that’s just what you did. Over the years, I have studied several different religions and just none of them were for me. It grew into a general distaste for all organized religion as I got older.  I still read a lot about different religions and philosophies. I have read the Bible, the Koran, many books on Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and quite a few on Atheism. I am no theologian, but I know a little, and I still haven’t really found anything that speaks to me. I call myself an Atheist, but I have a buddy that claims that I am the very definition of an Agnostic because I will admit that I am open to the idea of God. But my response to him has been, “If I ask you if you like broccoli, I think we can both agree I am asking if you like broccoli right now. Not 10 years down the road.” So, by that definition, I am an Atheist. Not saying I will never believe, but right now I don’t.

                So this left me as a closet Atheist in my hometown and with my own family. During this closeted time, I became the Godfather of 2 lovely children. Which made it rather awkward later on when it became more well known that I was a Atheist. In my family, the role of Godparent is a real honor and kind of a big deal. For the most part, your parents will pick a married couple to be the Godparents of the first child and in the event of their untimely demise, you would become the child’s legal guardian along with your religious duties on top. My wife would become the legal guardians to 3 kids (technically 4, but the oldest is now over 18) if something happened to my cousin and his wife. They are deeply religious and that is fine by me. We tend not to agree on a whole lot, but it has always been cool between us. Since my “coming out” we have come to an understanding that if anything ever did happen to them and the kids came to live with us, that my wife and I would of course honor their wishes and raise their children as they would have. But I did put the small caveat in the whole shebang, when I said that if I was asked what my personal opinion was that I would answer honestly. I would tell them my personal opinion and follow it up with “but your parents believed and wanted you to believe…”. I take my role as Godfather quite seriously.

                So it has come as quite a shock to me now that it is becoming known that my wife and I have chosen not to baptize Elizabeth, how people have been reacting. “Do you want your baby to go to hell or purgatory?” Well of course not. But please remember, I don’t believe in either of those places. I find it very hard to believe that an all knowing, all loving; God would punish my sweet, innocent, little baby girl simply because I don’t believe. As she gets older, I plan on nurturing any spiritual curiosity that she may have. If she wants to my wife and I would totally take her to a church, temple, mosque, Shinto temple, whatever she may be interested in. If she found a faith that works for her, great, we will support her. I just have a problem making such a big decision like that for my child. Truth be told, I am actually a little jealous of my religious family and friends that are able to just believe in their chosen faith. It seems like a real comfort. I have tried and have failed numerous times. But the point is that I would NEVER stop my daughter from finding spirituality.

                Personally, even though I am a little jealous of the comfort that can come with religion, I am always in awe of what science has provided us. Think of everything that you have at your disposal right now because of science! It is mind boggling. I got into a theological debate with a friend last summer and he asked, “So you’re saying that you are cool with the entire universe being a giant cosmic accident?”. I replied with yes. It is such an amazing thought. We are here because of everything aligning just right over an unfathomable amount of time. That is freaking amazing. The idea of someone having a plan for me is pretty cool too, but the idea of a cosmic accident leading to me and my free choice is way cooler.

                When my mother passed away I was understandably very upset. I was sitting on the back steps at my Ma’s house crying and just passing the time on my cell phone. I came across a meme that kind of put things in perspective for me. I will be paraphrasing but it said something to the effect of “You are a ghost, piloting a meat-wrapped skeleton, on a ball of molten rock, hurtling through space, around a giant nuclear reactor, which is also hurtling through the vast emptiness of space…and you are afraid of dying. Life is way scarier.” While that may not be a comfort to very many people, it really just put things in perspective and oddly made me feel better. I don’t know what comes after this life, but I know it doesn’t really matter. I was a wreck because my Ma wasn’t in my life right now.

                Anyways, it went off on a rather depressing rant for what is supposed to be a humorous blog. Had to get it off my chest though. If Elizabeth turns out to be a deranged serial killer because I didn’t get her baptized then I owe my deacon and my Godmother each a coke I guess. As usual, I truly thank you for reading my dribble about my parental fuck ups. Don’t forget to stop in and like Fatterhood on Facebook. Also, out of curiosity, if you are from another country I would love to hear how you found out about this, so please leave a comment on here or on Facebook! Until next time, prost!

Fat-dad's guidelines to success

Howdy ya’ll,

                I have been super busy with work again and have gotten behind on posts. I know what an a-hole. Anyways, today I have decided to do something slightly different. When my wife was pregnant, I started what I called a “pre-baby book”. I would write letters to my unborn child. The letters would be what was going on in our lives, what I was thinking about in regards to the impending fatherhood, how my wife was feeling, etc. So the following is an excerpt from my pre-baby book. It is Fat-dad’s guidelines to happiness. If you don’t remember, we didn’t know the sex of the baby before she was born so we nicknamed the fetus Sal.

Hey Sal,

The following are my tips for a happy/successful life. Some of these are going to feel contradictory and that’s because they are. The things that make us happy also have the potential to give us the greatest amount of pain, so happiness by itself is contradictory. Many of these I learned through trial and error, song lyrics, movies, and your grandmother.

11)      We are all born to broken people on their most honest day of living.- While your Ma may not be considered a “broken person” your father most assuredly is. But the whole pregnancy has given me focus. I only really have 1 job now. To raise you. So the day you are born will be my most honest day of living.

   2)      If your boat is sinking, sometimes it is better to sink the son of a bitch and remember that you can swim.- This was a favorite of your grandmother. When I was younger I never understood the meaning. Later, it struck me. The idea is that sometimes we pour a lot of energy in to things that we use as crutches. Many times you are better off to just let it go and let things be what they are and rely on your own strength to get you to where you need to be.

   3)      You find happiness when you stop searching for it. – If you think of your happiest moments it is usually the times that you just let a situation wash over you. The time spent planning or trying to obtain happiness are rarely very happy times.

   4)      Have an opinion but don’t be afraid to change it given new information- Keep yourself informed on issues, but do not be so stuck in your opinion that you refuse to change it when presented with new information.

   5)      Question EVERYTHING- This is an extension of guideline 4, you don’t have to be a dick about it, but you should question everything and form your own opinion.

   6)      Never stop learning- another extension of guidelines 4 and 5, but there is an entire world out there. You will never learn it all, but that is no reason to stop trying to learn it all. But don’t ever think you know everything.

   7)      Don’t start the fight, but if someone else does you can finish it. – This one is pretty self explanatory.

   8)      In almost any situation in life you have 2 options. You can laugh or you can cry. Crying doesn’t help anything.- Yet another favorite of your grandmother’s. What she meant was that you can cry, have at it, but realize it doesn’t really help anything. You might as well try to find the humor in whatever it is, laugh, and move on.

   9)      Let your freak flag fly. – Everyone is geeky about something. I am geeky about many things, comics, movies, music, video games, tv shows, etc. and I have taken crap for a good chunk of my life for it. Don’t know why though. I wear a band shirt and get made fun of, but someone can wear a sports jersey and nobody says anything? Doesn’t make sense. Find your jam and roll with it.

  10)   Remember that a job is NEVER “beneath” you. – I have worked a lot of shitty jobs. I mean a lot of them. But just remember, as long as it puts a roof over your head, food in your mouth, and clothes on your back, that job is never too good for you.

  11)   Find something you love to do and you will never work a day in your life. –I know, this one kind of breaks guideline 10 right? Guideline 10 is more of when you are younger or if guideline 11 doesn't pan out. The point is, you will be working for a good chunk of your life, why not find something you like doing? TGIF is bullshit, you shouldn’t hate 5 out of 7 days of your week.

  12)   Don’t be a dick.- This is my personal golden rule. It is pretty self explanatory again, but it bums me out that I need to explain that to people. Guideline 12 will get you through most of life’s tough decisions. If you are pondering something just think, “Would that make me a dick?” if the answer is “yes” then more than likely you shouldn’t do it.

You will end up learning much more throughout your years. And I am sure I will pass on more of my words of “wisdom” as well. This list is not all encompassing by any means, but it has done me pretty well over the years. I hope it makes you as lucky as I am. Love you- Dad

As always, thank you all for reading! Don’t forget to check out Fatterhood on Facebook. And above all…prost!

Home Alone!

Howdy gang,

                So my first legit night watching Da Butt all by myself wasn’t the train wreck that I thought it was going to be. It actually went quite well if I may say so myself. We played on the floor, we watched Supernatural, we took a few naps, it really was my idea of a perfect night. We did have 1 minor hiccup in that I thought Ewok was hungry due to her gutted cat scream that she was doing, so I may or may not have force fed her 2 ounces of milk before I accidentally figured out that she was just gassy as all hell. I gave up on the feeding and put her on my shoulder just to walk around when she erupted with such a forceful burp that even I had to be very impressed. She can burp and rip such a good fart that my wife is having trouble telling the difference between our burps and farts. Like I said, she is obviously mine.

                Ewok also started daycare last week. Today is her 4^th day, but from what the ladies at daycare are saying, she is doing very well so far. When my wife drops her off in the morning at about 6am, she is apparently the littlest baby there. This means that she gets a lot of snuggles and gets to be held which means that she is in a good mood before she gets put in her normal room. My wife and I went to pick her up together last Thursday and as soon as we walked in we hear a baby crying. I said, “Pretty sure that one is ours.”. My wife said, “No, don’t think that is her.” The closer we got to the room, the more we were both sure that it was ours. Sure enough, it was Ewok crying. She had managed to wake up all the other babies in the room too, so it was super enjoyable for those poor daycare ladies. I know daycare is ludicrously expensive, but those girls really don’t make enough. Anyways, one of the girls was trying to comfort Elizabeth, I grabbed her while my wife talked with the teachers. Put her up on my shoulder and she let out a long and loud burp. The one teacher said, “I thought maybe she was just gassy.” I tried to explain that yes, she got the wrong set of genes and she needs some extra time to get the burps out when she is feeding. She hates wet diapers and she hates having a tummy full of gas, otherwise she is super happy-go-lucky. They seemed like they would take it under advisement.

                She is becoming more and more like an actual little person by the day. We are figuring out what makes her happy, what doesn't, what the different cries mean, her routine, etc. She has started smiling pretty much all of the time, it is pretty easy to get a giggle out of her (I take quite a bit of pride in that it is far easier for me to get a giggle out of her than for my wife), she actually plays now, she has started reaching for objects. It really is awesome to me. A few weeks ago, she was just a little Mr. Potatohead that pooped herself and cried and now she is like a tiny person. I have been watching a documentary on Netflix and it has me rethinking my original position that she is a sociopathic block of wood. They made the point that kids and babies in particular are the greatest learning machines that nature has ever created. They are constantly learning. They are constantly participating in mini-experiments. As a parent your job is to shape these little scientists in to using their powers for good. Each child born has the potential to be the greatest thing to ever happen to humanity. Of course, they have the same potential to be the worst thing to ever happen to humanity…but no matter how much I mess up as a parent, I highly doubt that I will raise a new generation’s Hitler. Anyways, it is quite a bit to take in and has had me thinking a lot.

                Again, I don’t know how to explain how incredibly lucky we really are when it comes to Elizabeth. We are having some of our friends ask us if we are trying to trick them into having kids with how relatively easy Elizabeth has been. We also managed to get her to sleep for just shy of 10 hours last week! The kid just likes to sleep, eat, play, and smile. We really got it super easy. I have seen some of our friends not have it so easy and I don’t have any helpful advice to give them or anyone else for that matter. If you got a fussy kid, I will be of almost zero help to you. I do feel a little bad though since my poor daughter got my goofy ass proportions, so that might be an issue when she gets older. She ended up with my “fivehead”, my long torso, stubby short legs, and my wide nose. I still think she is gorgeous, but I hope she grows in to all of the proportionally. I guess time will tell on that one.

                As always, thanks for reading gang and don't forget to check our Fatterhood on Facebook. Hope you all had a happy 4^th! Prost!