Winning and losing all at the same time...

Howdy gang,

                Yet again, I apologize for the slow-down in posting. I had started this whole project with such high aspirations, but life tends to get in the way of great ideas. Anyways, enough with the pity party, let’s get down to the fun stuff.

                I just can’t believe how big Elizabeth is getting! Last week, due to my work schedule, I was unable to actually see or hold Elizabeth for a full 3 days. When I picked her up from daycare she was about to fall asleep in one of their swings, but when she saw me her eyes opened up big as saucers and she got so excited that she started waving her arms around. I picked her up out of the swing and I swear she gained 20 pounds and grew 6 inches! Looking through the pictures we have from the first day we brought her home to the ones we took this morning and I just can’t believe how much and how fast she can change in 5 months! She has enough muscle control now that she is starting to sit-up with limited assistance. She can hold her own bottle, again with limited assistance. She can’t quite figure out crawling yet though. What she does right now is she lifts her butt up in the air and pushes her big ol’ melon across the carpet using her feet/legs. She just can’t seem to figure out the part that her arms play in this deal.

                She loves playing games now. She had been terrified by peak-a-boo at first, but now giggles very hard when either my wife or I play with her. She really likes when I do this dumb little dance and sing Take On Me by A-ha and then move closer to her until I get so close that I “boop” her nose with mine. She loses her shit. She is still fascinated by T.V., which my wife is upset about. I really don’t have many hobbies anymore, but I do consider myself a cinephile, and as a nerd, I am involved in many different fandoms. So when I get home, I like to catch up on Walking Dead, rewatch Star Trek or Firefly, etc. And Elizabeth is just enthralled by the colors and the sounds. I never use it as a babysitter, I don’t plunk her down in front of the T.V. so that I can get stuff done, we watch it together. And usually I attempt to get her to play instead and I half watch it in the background. She still loves Supernatural, we are currently watching Walking Dead, and it turns out that she hates Star Trek: The Next Generation. To be fair, TNG is my least favorite as well, so she obviously is my kid.

                I have been finding with increasing ease, that my mission of staying unhealthy is doomed. I know you, dear reader, are currently lifting an eyebrow and thinking to yourself “But in your last post you said you drank for 22 hours straight and stayed up late every night for a week while eating terrible foods” and you’re not wrong. The difference is that if my 25 year old self had been put in the same situation, I would have been drinking Jack and Cokes instead of beer, I would have been doing shots, I probably would have been smoking Marb Red 100’s (the cowboy killers) instead of my cigars. Basically as crazy as I got, it would have been a whole lot crazier if I didn’t have a child waiting for me in my hotel room. I don’t like getting so crazy that I will have a 2 day hangover anymore. I’ve spent the better part of my 20’s either drunk, hungover or transitioning between the 2, so I thought that I had experienced the worst that booze had to offer. I was sooooooo wrong. You haven’t had a true hangover until you wake up to a screaming teething baby at 4 am and you went to bed at 3:50 am. After you have experienced that, you won’t want to do any of that shit any more.

                I also try to get more sleep, which in itself is a useless cause. Elizabeth had been doing very well with her night-time routine, but due to all of the weddings and visitors we have had, we have completely thrown her off. She now usually wakes up at least twice a night and is convinced that she needs to eat before she can go back to bed. I would help more when she wakes up, but as I posted about before, I am now associated with play-time. If I go in to try to get her back to sleep and she sees my face, then she is up and ready to rock. Most nights it takes my wife 15-20 minutes to feed her, change her and get her back to sleep. If I do it, then it turns in to a 1-2 hour adventure that usually requires me waking my wife up anyways to give her a boob.

                I’ve said it a thousand times by now that this is not a parenting advice blog. I smoke (never ever around the baby), I drink (usually around the baby), I swear (usually because of the baby), I don’t eat right, I don’t sleep right, I work too much, and it is safe to say that I have an ever decreasing state of mental health. But the difference now is that I have a true reason to turn it around. It started off innocently enough, but I realized that I started to drink less, smoke fewer cigars, eat more salads, sneak in more naps, say no to work, etc. I am starting to generally feel better and it is almost all due to my daughter. I still like to cut loose every now and again and I have my bad days where I slip back in to bad habits, but I am making “forward progress” which is weird for me. Having this blog has been super cathartic for me and just having a child in general has kept me in line way more than I had ever thought that it would.

                Anyways, I’ve started to ramble yet again. I will try to get another post up by the end of the week, so in the meantime you can catch up on the older posts, you can like Fatterhood on Facebook and get some awesome daily pictures and musings, and don’t forget to check back soon. I thank you for reading as usual, and PROST!

Fat-dad is still alive! But barely...

Howdy gang,

                Sorry for the long silence. If you follow Fatterhood on Facebook I am sure that I have made everyone quite aware that between my work, weddings, and Elizabeth teething it has been hard to find any form of free time. Anyways, where do I even begin at this point? Barring Elizabeth’s injury while we were in Madison, we had an awesome time. Friday night through Saturday evening she did so well. She slept through most of the game (Badgers won by the way) and was happy just to be carried around in her knock of Baby Bjorn. Saturday night/post-injury was another story though. She did fine as long as she was being held though, so we broke every rule in the parenting books and had her sleep with us in bed that night. The next morning she was crabby as all hell, but we could tell that it was at least starting to feel better. Monday morning it still wasn’t 100% so we got a little worried and we took her to our pediatrician on Tuesday morning. He said that since there was almost 3 hours by the time the injury was fixed that it was just going to take a little longer for it to feel better. By Tuesday night, it seemed that it was back to being fully functional and the teething was starting to subside.

                During this whole process though, my wife and I inadvertently taught her that if she screams that we will pick her up right away. Not the best lesson to give to your generally good natured and happy-go-lucky baby while she is teething! Even though it bugged the shit out of us, we did a little bit of “cry it out” parenting. By Wednesday night, her arm was feeling 100% and her teeth didn’t seem to bother her so she is pretty much back to her old self now. I am sure that once her next teeth come in that it will be game over again though. I really wish that babies would just get all of their teeth in all at once. As a parent, you would have a really shitty week while they came in, but then it would be done and over with. My god that would be nice.

                I have started to feel a wee bit better about the injury. After people found out I had friends, family, and even a few strangers tell me about their horror stories. My brother-in-law was a big help as he has 2 little girls and was able to cheer me up. As odd as it sounds, what really made me feel better was finding out that my mother-in-law had injured my wife’s sister in the same way when she was 2. I know that sounds terrible, but I mean it as a compliment. If my mother-in-law can accidentally injure her child and still be a great mom, then maybe I shouldn’t beat myself up too much.

                This past weekend we had yet another wedding. My wife’s sister got married and my wife and I were both standing up at the wedding. Luckily, my wife has a huge family on her Mom’s side and we had an entire army of Aunts that were fighting on who got to hold her. She spent the majority of the day with the Aunts and my wife’s grandmother. I am told that Elizabeth was in with all of the bridesmaids while they were getting ready though. Everyone commented on how cute she was and who they couldn’t believe that she didn’t mind being passed around from person to person. In general, as long as she isn’t crabby, hungry or wet, she really is a good natured and happy-go-lucky little kiddo. So it was nice to hear, but not really a big shock.

                The wedding was nice of course, we did our thing and had fun, but it was really weird to take that break from being a parent. I had someone watching my child from about 7am to about 6pm. I hardly even saw her that day. I mean, I guess I should be used to it since I go to work, but there was just something different about it this time. After dinner my wife and I hardly put her down at all. It wasn’t long after the grand march though that my wife accidentally got stuck on baby/toddler duty. She ended up in the hotel room with Elizabeth and one of my nieces. Throughout the night she gained 2 more. It was actually really cute and my wife said she didn’t really mind except she wished we would have danced together. Luckily we have about 13,847,293,849 more damn weddings yet, so I think we can fit it in somewhere.

                Towards the end of the dance I was thoroughly drunk. I had started drinking at 6am and just kind of kept going all day. I was attempting to cut a rug, but I ended up getting cornered by every damn child at the wedding (minus any that were sleeping in my hotel room of course). There were these wrestling belts that were used by the bride and groom in the grand march as my sister-in-law’s husband is a big wrestling fan. They all kept bringing the belts to me and then would run away, screaming with delight, as I tried to capture them and put the belts on them. I had a small army of 4 or 5 doing this for a good hour or so. There was some rando kid there too, not even sure who the hell she belonged to, but she was very shy, I mean painfully shy. I am terrible at guessing ages, but she appeared to be about my niece and my god daughter’s age, so around 4. By the end of the dance, she was riding on my shoulders and when her grandparents (I assumed they were grandparents since they seemed too old to be her parents) came to collect her she started crying. I got her to smile and thanked her for dancing and playing with me. They told me that she is normally quite shy and that I must be really good with kids to get her to come out of her shell like that. They had thought that at least 3 of the kids were mine, again I don’t know what it is that makes people think that I am old enough to have that many kids.

                I’ve actually heard from people my whole life about how good I am with kids; toddlers through teenagers are kind of my wheelhouse though. It seemed to throw people off when I we found out we were pregnant and had expressed anxiety about having an infant. “But you’re so great with kids!” they would say. And they aren’t wrong, but a baby or an infant, is different. It’s not just the fact that they are so fragile, but the fact that they can’t communicate. With a toddler you can usually figure you’re way through what they want. They can tell you if they are hurt, hungry, tired, poop filled, etc. With an infant, they only have one way of communicating what they want and that is screaming until they are satiated. Of course, you do learn the differences in their cries, but when you have an infant that is hungry, wet, teething, with an ear infection then you don’t even know where to start.

                To end my rant, it has been a crazy 2 weeks with a lot of ups and downs, but for the most part the 3 of us came out unscathed. A lot of stress, a lot of riding in cars, not a lot of sleep, and an insane amount of drinks have been had (seriously… Saturday alone it was 6am-4am. You read that right. 22 hours of drinking), but we seem to be figuring this parenting shit out ok. As per usual, I thank you for reading and I invite you to check us out on Facebook. Other than that, I will hope to have a few more posts up this week so check back soon. Prost!

Fat-dad : the bone crusher

Howdy all,

Just got back from an E.R. visit in Madison. We were down here for the Badger game with our good friends Doc and Ginger, I will post about the weekend later, but I had to tell this tale. After the game the 6 of us went out for dinner on State street. I was beginning to get my trademark mood of hangry so we nestled in at a nice little restaurant.  We were sitting in our booth and Ewok had just ate and was now ready to play. I put her up on the table and ran through my catalog of moves to keep her entertained. One of these new moves is while we are at home she has become really good at standing on her own with her just holding on to my hands for support. Normally at home we perform this maneuver on the couch, but she does so well with it that I didn't even think about the fact that a slippery table may not be the best place to do it. Her feet slipped a little which made her legs buckle and all of her weight came crashing down on just her right wrist. I felt a little pop and she started screaming. This was the type of scream that is normally reserved for finding a dead body, but she belted it out. We were able to calm her down and even get her to sleep in the restaurant,  but then we noticed that she was avoiding using her right arm all together and whenever we would touch it, she would start screaming again. Doc looked her over and figured that nothing was broken, but couldn't be sure. I was so upset with myself that I couldn't even eat. I rushed everyone out of the restaurant and wanted to at least get back to the hotel so my wife and I could figure out a game plan. We got her in to her car seat and the screams started again. Doc and Ginger drove us to the nearest E.R. as something was obviously not right at this point. We were seen and the Dr. told us that it was actually a super common minor injury. She had a name for it which is escaping me right now, but essentially when Elizabeth fell she twisted a tendon in her arm. The Dr. did a little adjustment on her arm, took some x-rays to be safe (nothing broken or dislocated thank god), gave her some Tylenol and sent us on our way. Doc and Ginger drove back to the hotel and grabbed our car and then drove all the way back to drop it off too. This is easily the worst feeling I have had as a parent or even as a human being in general. This sweet, tiny, fragile little girl depends on my wife and I for everything and I hurt her. It was totally unintentional but that fact does very little to make me feel any better. Between her arm, teething and just having a long day in general at the game, our little lady sure isn't the happiest creature right now. And it is my fault. My wife keeps telling me that it was an accident, that she is fine, and that I was just trying to make her smile, but I still feel like shit spread over burnt toast over it. Of course my wife isn't wrong, she rarely is, I guess I just hope my little Ewok will feel better tomorrow morning and that someday this will be a story that we laugh about. Man, that feels better. I will update y'all soon. Thanks for reading and please have a beer in hope of Ewok's speedy recovery. Prost.

A message from the Queen.

Howdy gang,

Here is the post that you all have been waiting for, you finally get to hear from my wife! I wrote down a few questions and told her that she had carte blanche to say whatever came to her mind. I made a few comments at the end of each of her responses, but this one is all her. As Elizabeth can attest, Fat-dad is funnier, but the masses had spoken and they wanted to her from my Queen. Enjoy!

First off, how do YOU feel about the blog?
As an avid blog reader, I was excited about the blog and eager to see where it would go. I've always known Brian can entertain a crowd and was excited to see how his stories unfolded in writing. I love the long blog posts most, but get excited to see the daily updates on Facebook as well. Plus whoever takes the majority of the photos that are posted is a pretty awesome lady! I seriously learn new things about my husband and daughter (good or bad) through reading the blog and look forward to the moments that make me think "Really, that's how he remembers that event unfolding?" Or, "Oh, I do not claim responsibility for [insert crazy action, nerdy reference or vulgar phrase here]."

“Despite what she says, I am pretty sure that she doesn’t like many of the things that I write about, but she has been an amazing sport about all of this so far.”

Can you describe how you felt when you found out you were pregnant?

Since getting pregnant took about 2 years for us, I was certainly shocked when I first saw the positive pregnancy test. I wasn't even planning to take the test that Sunday night, but once I told the yet-to-be-titled Fat-Dad that I thought I should take one that week, he insisted that I should take the test that night when we were together. He's not one for surprises, so waiting any longer wasn't really an option for him.  I had seen plenty of negative tests in previous months, so it took me a while to really realize what I was looking at before the excitement set in. I was both excited and shocked! I was so used to seeing negative results and bring disappointed by it that I really didn't know how to feel. I kept my initial reaction hidden for a few minutes and let Brian read the results for himself. My second thought, I believe, was "Shit, we drank a lot of Moscow Mules last weekend".

“None of that is inaccurate. The Moscow Mules were on our minds, but I wasn’t too worried. I didn’t even know about all of the negative tests, now I have to wonder what she would have done if I wasn’t home…”

What can you tell us about the pregnancy itself? 

I loved being pregnant and seriously do miss it! In the beginning, however, I was a nervous wreck and constantly in fear that it was either all a dream or that I would miscarry. That nervous feeling continued on past the first ultrasound, past hearing the first heart beat, and in to the first few weeks of feeling kicks. It just didn't feel real and I couldn't wrap my mind around it. This, hilariously caused a bit of a role reversal for us. Since it didn't quite feel real, I refused to plan too far ahead or really do any prep. Brian, on the other hand, was researching and wanting to order baby gear. 
Overall I had a great pregnancy! I think a combination of luck and overly positive attitude went a long way for me. I hardly had any morning sickness, even though I had plenty of food aversions (no raw veggies) and very few cravings. I was comfortable for my whole pregnancy and up until the last week could still run up a flight of stairs. There were even times where I'd forget I was pregnant until I'd feel a kick; I just felt that good!  I never reached the "get this thing out of me" stage but did develop a pretty sweet waddle by the last few weeks!

“I can’t help but point out that she left out that all she did for the first 3 months was sleep. She didn’t have the worst morning sickness, but she wasn’t doing cartwheels around the house either. She actually did do pretty damn well for the rest of the pregnancy though. I loved the fact that she was constantly craving meat. Totally worked for me.”

Can you describe the delivery? 

It must have been a combination of the hormones and the adrenaline, but every time someone asks about labor and delivery, I reply with "It wasn't that bad!".  I know I'm tough with a very high pain tolerance, and I do remember the contractions being uncomfortable and even quite painful at the end, but it was much more of a mental game for me. I was determined to have an active, non-medicated birth with no intervention and I was very proud, and lucky to be able to do just that. I don't ever recall getting to a point where I thought I needed pain management to continue and as long as Brian continued to put insane amounts of pressure on my hips I  never had to dig into the list of mental tactics I was saving for when I wanted to give up. I very much lived in the moment (something I'm terrible at doing normally). A few things that clearly stand out in my memory about labor are: the look on Brian’s  face a little after Midnight when I told him I was starting to have contractions (shock, excitement, and oh shit I just finished off a bottle of wine and shouldn't drive); the nurses' shock when they found out I was easily far enough in my labor to warrant staying at the hospital (we arrived about 4 AM); the dancing we did between contractions; that Da Butt would kick hard every time before the next  contraction would start and I would shoot Brian the look of "here we go again"; the evil look I shot Brian in the last few minutes of pushing when he reminded me that I only had 15 minutes left to push the baby out if I wanted to make estimated delivery time I listed earlier; and the pure look of joy on both of our faces when Elizabeth was born! We did have a little hiccup at the end with a postpartum hemorrhage, but I was blissfully in mama heaven with my little girl in my arms and really don't remember much of that at all.

“I’m calling bullshit on about 90% of this paragraph. She yelled quite a bit and swore. I could hear her down the hall while I was using the bathroom. Luckily, the floor was pretty empty and there was another woman yelling “FUCK” at the top of her lungs, so that did kind of put it in perspective for me. The hemorrhage by the way was absolutely terrifying for me. I work with blood every day and I could tell pretty quickly that it wasn’t good. Thank god that the bleeding was able to be controlled and my wife was none the wiser for it.”

What do you think is the best thing about being a parent so far?

 Honestly, I don't know where to begin! I'm loving every minute of being a Mom; it's everything I thought it would be and more than I could have ever imagined at the same time! I find myself so extremely proud of Elizabeth every time she does something new and want to see her grow and learn; yet at the same time, I want time to slow down and for her to stay little forever.  But it's not only her; I love the changes that have happened to us as parents! Sure our bed isn't always made like it used to be, and the dishes aren't done every night, but we love family time and couple time much more! Even if couple time is giving backrubs and falling asleep on the couch together nearly every weeknight. Seeing Brian become a Dad has been a blast as well!

“Becoming a parent had me terrified in general, but having my wife so ready to rock kind of kept me in line. I had to get my head in the game. Now, I truly can’t imagine myself any other way.”

What do you think is the hardest thing about being a parent so far?

 We have been lucky enough to have a pretty easy time so far. Again, it may be the hormones or Mommy goggles which have made me forget the harder parts of the first few weeks, but so far I'm loving every minute of it! The hardest thing for me right now seems to be letting things go (like making the bed and folding laundry) and remembering that she'll only be this little for a little bit.

“I am calling bullshit again, she seems to let all of the house shit fall to the wayside pretty easily. I do my best to pick up the slack though because she is right. We only get a short time with her as a little lady so dishes and laundry can wait. I happen to be a night owl though so it is pretty easy to make time when my lovely ladies are in bed. The hardest part for me is related though, I wish I didn’t have to work anymore so that I could be at home with my Ewok more.”

Do you have anything else to add?

 Nothing for now, but give me a day or two and I'm sure I'll be up feeding Eliza in the middle of the night and I'll remember something I wanted to say.

“Ah…I have been meaning to do a blog post about this. My wife insists on calling Elizabeth “Eliza”. I prefer Liz. It has become quite an area of contention around our house.  I might have to do a post about that still anyways just so you dear reader, can get the full story and decide for yourself.”

As always, I thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed this different post from Fatterhood. If you enjoyed it, perhaps I can look at doing a few more like it in the future. I am sure that my wife could do her very own blog based on just my antics. Don't forget to check out Fatterhood on Facebook, and until next time...PROST!