Stuff I don't plan on giving up: Part 2

Every man needs a sport.

And I don't mean a sport you watch on TV. While there is, without a doubt, a certain need for men to gather together and observe the nation's finest athletes doing their thing, and perhaps supporting some team with which you feel some loyalty or connection.

And I'm not talking about coaching your kids' little league team, though that's certainly noble, too.

No, I think every man should have at least one sport that they actually participate in. It doesn't have to be athletic- just something in which a man can engage his competitive spirit. Something he can win. I maintain that being competitive helps a guy maintain his sense of vigor; it helps him give his kids the sense of focus and drive they'll need to succeed in the real world. And while we compete every day at work, there are few concrete victories in the workplace. In sport, there are. So having a sport is, in my opinion, absolutely key.

For me, that sport is racing. I do a few others, too- but racing is where my real passion is at. Lucky for me, my sort of racing (called 'autocross') isn't one where I'm likely to get killed or drop a couple of thousand dollars per weekend, which, I'd say, greatly increases the likelihood that I'll get to continue participating in. This one takes up about one weekend a month from March to October, and costs less than pretty much any other form of racing.

This year is sizing up pretty well. Five races into the season and I'm leading the regional championship rankings for my class by a healthy eight-point margin. I had my first real test of how sustainable this sport was going to be, already- we had a race just a week after the baby was born. My wife, God bless her, knew how important this was to me, and practically shooed me out the door. Life is good.

Of course, that first time, she had her mom to stick around and help her out, and as I've noticed with other friends, they just get to be more and more of a handful as time goes on. Still, I'm optimistic that I won't have to give this up.

I do have other sports that may fall, though. I've been fairly active in my local Ultimate Frisbee league for the last few years, and I love it- but Ultimate night falls between the other two nights where I have MBA classes, and I would like to get to know my daughter at some point. And I don't know how much I'll get out to play golf. But giving those up are a lot easier, knowing that I'm getting to keep the one that's really important to me, you know?

So, hon, I know you're reading this- thank you!

So far, so good.

So, we’re finishing up our second week. All told, it’s been a pretty good experience, largely because Katrina has taken on a lion’s share of the work. This whole week she’s let me sleep all night, every night, while she handled all the diapers, feedings, and whatnot. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this treatment, but if I knew, I reckon I could get filthy rich selling the secret. Coming back to work, with a week’s backlog waiting, is less than fun, and I suspect having a full night’s sleep every night during the ‘digging back out’ process is perhaps a new gold standard in treating your man right, surpassing even the customary activities of March 14.

We’ve had ‘Mimi’ (that’s Katrina’s mom) here this week, which has also been good- she’s been awesome about helping with the unbelievable amounts of laundry this little one produces, about holding or watching her for a bit, and with darn near everything else. Let me go ahead and pass on some advice I received, though: If you’re thinking about having parents come to help, do this: Have one come, stay for a week, then do a week alone. Then maybe have another one come, and stay for a week. Left up to my own devices, I’d keep a grandmother here probably for the next two months, but there exists a weird effect between a new mom and an old mom. Old mom knows the way she always did things, and knew they worked pretty well, whereas new mom wants to try out her own methods and whatnot, and the dynamic between the two women can get a bit weird. It’s like- have you ever watched a kid trying to tie their shoes? And eventually you get frustrated seeing them fumbling around and screwing it up for five minutes, so you finally do it for them, and then you wonder why the kid is mad at you? It’s like that, but with poop and bottles and whatnot. Katrina and her mom have actually been doing really well on this count, but here at the tail end of the week I can definitely detect a little tension forming, and I think it’s probably good that we’re not going for another week. Right now I think the plan is to go it alone for a week, then have my mom come down the week after that.

As for the kid herself, she’s freakin’ adorable. Despite me being preoccupied with work and trying to stay caught up with household chores, she and I have been having some pretty good time together. There seems to be a few windows between sleep, eat, and poop where she wakes up and checks out the world, so I try to rush in and steal her during those times. One bit that I’ve voluntarily picked up, and am enjoying, is the bedtime story. Of course, she has no idea what I’m saying, but she seems to like looking at the book, at least, so I’ll take it!

Bottom line- so far, so good! Of course, once Katrina has to go back to school, or she gets sick of giving me free nights off, it may be a different story. Stay tuned!

Been an interesting week!

Sorry for the late post, guys. It's been an interesting week.

So, on the 6th- Friday before last- the wife was supposed to come to the office for a baby shower, at 2:00p. My office is maybe not the timeliest when it comes to planning baby showers- my coworker, Mike, actually had his kid a few days before the day for which his shower was planned. But they set this one a tad earlier- a good two weeks off the due date. Which isn't too bad, for my office.

Of course, it wasn't good enough. At 1:30p, Katrina calls and says, "I'm not joking. My water just broke."

So, we were off to the races. I attempted to drive home at near-race pace, but traffic, it seems, hadn't gotten the memo. I didn't get snarled in a true traffic jam, just one of those shoulder-to-shoulder-at-35mph deals. Which normally isn't a big deal. But when you can't be entirely sure that your wife isn't about to deliver your daughter on your couch, it becomes perhaps a smidge more frustrating. Like, cursing-and-pounding-your-steering-wheel frustrating.

Thankfully, I arrived to find my girl fresh-faced, all packed up, and ready to roll. Admissions were fairly painless- the ten minutes covering the process during the childbirth class got that part right on.

Here's what I wasn't entirely ready for: the waiting game. Of course, I knew that there would be a wait; when your wife is pregnant you hear dozens of stories of 'she was in labor for 22 hours' and so forth. What I didn't fully grasp was how time stretches during this period. You know how, when you were a kid, the night before Christmas morning seemed to last forever? Well, this was just like that. Except instead of tossing restlessly in your bed, you're stuck in a room with a woman in terrible intermittent pain, and you can't really do much to help her. And instead of stumbling downstairs to see what Santa left you, you get to see a doctor cutting...

..oh wait, we'll get to that later.

So the first real hurdle was about the three hour mark, when the pain started getting too much for her and she decided she wanted an epidural. Sadly, the anesthesiologist was in the middle of another emergency case, and had yet another one after that. However, our nurse was very touchy-feely. That's good enough, right?

Not so much. Katrina is not one that wants to be cooed over or touched when she's hurting. She wants to be left the heck alone. At this point she had kicked ever her father out of the room, and this girl is nuts about her dad. And yet, this nurse was right on top of her, rubbing on her face and saying things like, "focus! focus!" I seriously thought Katrina was going to get up and maul that lady. Thankfully she went off her shift about 45 minutes later and we got The Best Nurse In the World, who, among other excellent qualities, had enough intuition to stay clear until the epidural showed up.

And yeah, once the epidural showed up, Katrina was out, like a light, leaving me in the room, relieved but puzzled about what to do. I elected to snap a quick pic, and then tried to figure out what to do next. Turns out there's really not much to do in such a situation... so I broke out the notebook and organized and tagged some MP3s. Seems inappropriate, I know, but... I couldn't leave the room, I couldn't turn on the TV, so MP3 organization is what I had. At least it wasn't office work.

I'll skip most of the rest of the details of the next eight or so hours and get right to the good part: midnight. By this time she was fully dilated and ready to rock. Our next curveball was that our usual doctor wasn't on call that weekend, and we'd be working with an Indian fellow with a nice thick accent. Our nurse had to translate sometimes. But he was fairly confident, which Katrina liked.

However, one part of my plan went right out of the window. I'd planned to stay up by Katrina's head, pretending to share words of strength and encouragement, but the doc asked me to come down to the 'business end' to help, by holding a leg and ankle. Yeah, not part of the plan. And I suggest it not be part of your plan, either, as you will see parts of your wife do things that may haunt your dreams. But even that was small change compared to the surprise of the night... before I could look away, the doc had grabbed a pair of scissors and performed an episiotomy. For those of you not in the know, that's when the doctor creates a wider opening for the baby by cutting some or all of the flesh between the anus and vagina. I'm not sure exactly what I did, because whatever part of my brain that protects my sanity from the darkest horrors haven't released access to those memories yet, but I'm sure it wasn't good. And worse, he apparently didn't cut deep enough, because she tore a bit, too. Yikes. And despite all that... they still had to use a vacuum extractor- sort of a suction cup they affix to the top of her head- to get her out. She was a big 'un.

Shortly after that, though- at 12:22am on 6.7.08, to be exact, we had ourselves a little girl. She weighed 8lb 7oz and measured 20.5 inches. She was a bit goopy at first, but the fabled protective instincts kicked in right away when I saw some nurse I'd never met jabbing one of those nasal aspirators into her mouth. I know it had to be done, but why the jabbing, fer chrissakes?

Anyway, the kiddo was healthy and stable, and after a bit of stitching, cleaning, weighing, and whatnot, everyone made an exit and the family and friends came in to visit. We had a pretty impressive crowd. I ran out to get Katrina a double cheeseburger and fries from Burger King- which she very specifically requested. (I'll admit, I stole a few fries on the way back to the hospital. They smelled too good.)

We were in the hospital from Friday at about 2:00p until Monday around noon, and a had a pretty good experience. One good lesson here: if they offer to take your baby away to the nursery for an evening so you can get some sleep.... DO IT. You'll be spending countless nights with them for the rest of their life, but a little sleep will certainly keep you a bit more sane and rational. But anyway, over the next few days we spent some quality time together, figuring out the breastfeeding thing and generally bonding, which was nice. Being cooped up in a single room and sleeping on a couch for three days and nights was maybe less fun. It was nice to get home.

All told, I'd have to say it was a good experience. Currently little Tori and her mom are both doing pretty well. We're not getting as much sleep as we'd like, but we've got a healthy, cute baby, and for that I'm incredibly grateful.

Thanks again, everyone, for your well wishes!

Stuff I don't plan on giving up: Part 1

Seems like every time someone has a baby, there's always a huge laundry list of things that everyone believes you'll have to give up. "Oh, guess you won't be doing [this] or [that] anymore," or "I suppose you'll be selling your [whatever] soon."


I'm really curious about how much of this is pre-baby terror, and how much is realistic. I mean, I'm an intelligent and flexible guy, I've got friends and enough money to hire a babysitter now and then. I'm really wondering what- if anything- of my current possessions and activities I'll have to give up. So in the next few weeks I'll be covering the things I don't expect to have to give up... and you guys will get to see how that works out for me.

Let's start with the first item: video games. This, I think, may actually be one of the more challenging ones. Gaming is inherently a two-handed activity... and I've learned from experience that babies generally take at least one hand. But I've never been one to be deterred from a challenge. As it is, there doesn't seem to be enough time for me to even come even close to keeping up with the incredible new titles that are coming out for the 360 and the Wii. So how will the bundle of joy effect this? Will my already sparse game time dwindle into nothingness? Here's what I'm thinking:

1. There's two of us. Now, I know better than to think I can pawn Princess Squirmkins off on the missus all night while I blast through waves of the Covenant, okay? But I do believe there is certainly plenty of daily give-and-take to be had... and I know the missus has stuff she's going to want to do sans infant, too. So in the process of trading favors, I should be able to sneak in some game time.


2. Thank god for the Wii. Looks like there's at least a few good titles that will end up being one-handed. Boom Blox, for example, looks pretty promising. And I'm reasonably sure I can WiiBowl with a kid on the other arm. Might affect my score a smidge, but the rest of the crew is probably happy for me to have a handicap. Heh.


3. There's always LAN parties. My buddy Eric throws a big LAN party about once a quarter that's half geekfest and half drunken, rowdy college-style party. The missus has already said I'm still completely clear to continue hitting the LAN parties.... thanks probably in no small part to my boys Chris and Thom paving the way- after all, they've got babies, and they haven't missed one yet. I owe ya, fellas.


All told, I'm reasonably sure having a baby will mean somewhat less gaming- but I certainly don't plan on giving it up. (Mark those words. I may have to eat them later!)