Is there anything harder in the world than a mom going back to work after having her first kid?  After seeing it happen this past week, I would have to say no.  As most of you know, Stunning was offered a job about a week and a half ago and all of a sudden we realized she’d be back to work before any of us expected it.  That day came on Monday and she got all dressed up and after the two month appointment, went into the office.

The night before was the toughest part though.  It’s definitely a struggle to weight the need for money to give your kid a good life and the need to be with him to do the same. 

Does part of me worry about both parents working?  Absolutely.  You see kids where the parents give them little attention as they work all the time and most of the time, those kids are messed up.  I think when both parents work, there has to be a lot of work by the parents to make the time with the kids worthwhile and meaningful.  It’s probably easier now though, because Junior can’t function as a person without us.  However, when he gets older it’ll be easier to let him play by himself as we take a breather.  It’s important not to do that though, I think… as hard as it might be. 

In the end, Stunning did great and I’m amazingly proud of her being the bread-winner.  Now, we just have to balance that whole “latch key kid” versus “impactful parents”.

Mother’s Day is full of pomp and circumstance.  Even moreso when it is the first Mother’s Day for a Mom.  Don’t worry, Stunning made sure I knew it was an important and big holiday. 

We didn’t do much special.  Of course, we usually go to church, but our pediatrician suggested not going to church until the two month shots (more on those tomorrow).  We didn’t go to church.  Instead, we marked the day by letting mom hang out and dictate what she wanted and how.  Basically, if she wanted Junior, she got him.  If he was being fussy, I got him.  You know… that kind of situation.

We went to lunner (lunch/dinner).  I got her a piece of jewelry to commemorate this momentous event. Then I left her at home with the kid and went to the San Antonio Spurs game.  The Spurs game was unexpected, but it was either I go or my mother-in-law go.  My mother-in-law didn’t want to go, so it was kind of a Mother’s Day present to her that I went.  It was a sacrifice for the happiness of the mother-in-law.  Stunning even signed off on it… I swear.

The end.

We got this really cool suit and tie for Jack from our friends in Wisconsin.  Pretty much the classiest outfit the kid owns and I can’t wait for him to wear it around looking all cool and stuff. 

Anyway, the following is the thank you note sent to the gift givers:

Dear Gift Givers,

You guys are awesome.  That suit is Junior’s best outfit BY FAR.  Leave it to the gay men to be sure that Jack is the best dressed baby on the block.  When I become a rich lawyer, I am flying you guys down here.  Or maybe I’ll just whore myself out for extra dough – we miss you guys so much and MUST see you… even if it means a VD here and there.  Nothing wrong with hooking.  OKay – this thank you note too a bad turn real fast.  Thank you for the suit.  There. That’s what I meant to say.  Love, Us.

Wow.  I always knew my wife had a knack for writing thank you cards… I guess I just never realized her full talent.

Well, it looks like Stunning will be heading back to work soon.  If everything goes according to plan, she’ll start her permanent position on June 1.  She’ll work on a contract/temporary position at the company for the month of May.  Of course, this means we have to find someone to take care of Junior and we have to find them quick.  Really quick.  Like, she’ll probably be working full time at the office next week quick.

For the month of May, we think we found someone:

That is Junior’s Aunt Burb.  She’s going bike riding across the United States in June, but she’ll be at home, bored, and poor in May.  The poor part is the most important part, because we’re going to pay her.  Clearly, she wants to be part of Junior’s life… since you know… she’s loving the pacifier with him.

After May though, things become pretty much crazier.  How do you find a place/person that you trust with your child when your child can be a bit much to handle with the non-stop painful crying?  It’s tough.. we eventually decided that we’d like to find a nanny instead of a daycare.  I think this has a lot to do with the fact that Stunning was a nanny, so she’s big into the nanny thing. 

We signed up for two services: www.sitters.com and www.sittercity.com and we’ll hopefully find someone through there.  A little more about them tomorrow!

Needless to say, these past 8 weeks have not always been the easiest for me or Stunning.  It’s tough to see your child go through all of this.  However, there’s one thing that I’ve learned and it is that a) my wife is absolutely amazing and b) women have an amazing innate ability to take care of children.

I’m not a guy who gets frustrated easily.  In fact, I could probably count the times I got frustrated before Junior was born on one hand.  However, there’s something strange about being around a screaming child that for me it just got to my inner core.  Once we discovered that it was a medical problem, it was easier to accept.  He can still be a plain old fussy baby and when that happens, goodness gracious, it’s tough to handle for me.

On the other hand, my wife is one to get frustrated easily in life.  There’s been many times where I’ve had to calm her down over things that I thought just weren’t that big of a deal.  It’s probably why we make a good duo.  However, when it comes to Junior, very rarely does she get frustrated.  She could be with him for hours when he’s fussy and barely be bothered.

This has made me realize that there really is some instinct there.  There has to be a reason that it is so easy for fathers all over the world to be able to have little to no connection with their kids.  Mothers rarely are in that position. 

More than that though, my wife is doing laundry and cleaning bottles and dealing with a sick kid who can be fussy and she holds it all together.  I can not imagine being married or going through this with anyone else.  At times, when I felt everything was falling apart, she’s been my glue.  She’s an amazing woman and an amazing mother.

From the wife today:

This is a long post—I am hesitant to write it because we have so many friends who are trying to have/expecting babies. I don’t want to scare anyone into thinking that parenthood is dreadful. So I will say that what we are going through, although not terribly uncommon, is not normal. My sister and brother both have babies who are happy and rarely fussy and sleep for hours at a time.

I didn’t have many expectations for motherhood but the one that I did have was that I would breastfeed for as long as possible (hoping to meet that 1 year mark). John and I attended the nursing 101 class and had many discussions about how he could encourage me to keep nursing even when I started to think I didn’t want to anymore. I think that we thought the hardest thing about nursing would be the “inconvenience” of it. Wrong.

First, for some reason, I developed a strange side effect of nursing: I grew increasingly nauseous every time Junior ate. I’m talking first trimester, I-might-puke-all-over-this-kid sick. That lasted about 2 weeks and then it died off. On top of that, Junior would only latch every once in awhile. We had to give him bottles half the time because he simply wouldn’t latch. Finally, early last week, we had a good rhythm: he finally started latching but he would nurse for a full hour and then would want to eat again in an hour or less. Then he began to scream bloody murder after every nursing session. A lactation specialist told me that he was just frustrated because bottles are so much faster and he was frustrated that he couldn’t get that same fast feeding from me. Of course, I thought this was ridiculous because if that were the case, wouldn’t he scream at the beginning of the feeding? After a few days of this, we started giving him a bottle when he would start crying. Luckily, I had a bit of a supply built up of pumped milk so we were good to go. Except for the fact that the kiddo usually drank 3 oz even AFTER a 60 minute feeding. We decided that something must be wrong with my supply. I went back to the lactation consultant and we found out that Junior was only getting 1 oz from me. Considering that he could down a 4 oz bottle with no problems, we were beginning to get concerned that my milk supply was low. After comparing what I was pumping to what is normal, I realized that I have a horribly low supply. Enter fenugreek and pancake smell. Unfortunately, although I did begin smelling like maple syrup, my supply remained the same. I can’t tell you how sad this all made me—I had convinced myself that I would nurse for a year and now I couldn’t even provide my son with 1/4 of what he needed at each feeding. We decided that I would stop nursing and only pump—we’d give Junior my milk from bottles during the day and formula at night (we just didn’t have enough of my milk to go without formula). It was simply too hard to nurse for 60 minutes, give a bottle, settle Junior down, and then pump to get any excess that Junior had missed (and to get a supply up for the bottles we now had to feed him). By the time all that was over, I only had about 45 minutes before Junior was ready to eat again. I was going crazy. I should say that I think it’s a shame that people make women feel so guilty about their decisions regarding nursing. There are people that are so pro-breastmilk that they forget that there is a human behind those boobs who needs sleep and sanity. I was not going to be a good mom to Junior if I kept that up. But everything I read and almost every “professional” I talked to made me feel like I was selfish if I stopped nursing, even though I couldn’t satiate Junior if I continued. Anyway, we made our decision and that first day was great! I gave Junior bottles when he got hungry and then pumped right away. He was way more chill because he didn’t spend all that time screaming out of frustration that he wasn’t getting enough food. John and I thought we’d turned a corner and that we would FINALLY have a happy baby. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

The last week or so, Junior has started to get hysterical after every feeding—even from the bottle (which he normally loves). It got worse and worse to the point that he would scream bloody murder during a feeding and for about an hour afterward. He was/is absolutely inconsolable. He is so hungry but he will take a few sips and then scream and scream and scream. So he wasn’t eating as much but then he’d wake up an hour later starving. And we’d go through it again. We finally got in to see the pediatrician and found out the news: our sweet little boy has both acid reflux and a milk protein allergy. Basically, he has such bad acid that his throat is totally raw. So every time he eats, it upsets that already irritated esophagus and he screams out of pain. But, of course, he’s still hungry so he has to basically suck it up and eat anyway—despite the fact that he is in agony. So when I thought that he was mad at not getting enough milk from me, he was actually in pain because his stomach had begun sending up all that acid to his esophagus. So low milk supply + acid reflux = super unhappy Junior.

It is, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. It is impossible to watch him in such pain. He screams to the point where no noise comes out—one of those horrible, guttural cries. Add to that the fact that there is NOTHING we can do to calm him down or make him feel better. Mix in the lack of sleep because he truly won’t doze for long enough for us to fall asleep too. We usually get an hour of sleep and then he’s up for an hour and a half screaming. Rinse and repeat. It’s horrible. But at least now we have a diagnosis. The pediatrician prescribed Zantac—it’s weird and sad giving my one month old prescription medication but we are praying that it will work. We also switched to a special (and freaking expensive!) formula that is supposed to neutralize acid in his stomach so it won’t come up to his throat. Finally, I have to cut out all milk and milk proteins from my diet so that it doesn’t pass to my milk (and thus to Junior). I didn’t think it would be that hard because it’s easy to avoid cheese, yogurt, etc. But I was wrong: milk proteins are in everything! Even the stuff where milk is removed still has the proteins left. We are so praying that this will all heal our little boy. The doctor said not to expect him to be better for about two weeks (TWO WEEKS?!?!?!) and we are sincerely asking for you to pray that it works. Today was his first full day on all the medicine, formula, etc. and there wasn’t much improvement. He went three feedings without screaming but then freaked out again (I am writing this post in the middle of the night after one of his scream fests). I really cannot tell you how much we’d appreciate your prayers. Thanks everyone!

There’s a good chance my wife will be in a continual state of wanting pancakes.  That’s because over the next few weeks there’s a good chance she’ll smell like a hot pile of steaming pancakes drenched with maple syrup.  This isn’t some type of strange fat guy fantasy… It’s the truth.

Remember adventures in breastfeeding?  Well, the adventures have continued.  After I wrote my last post about it, Stunning developed extreme nausea while trying to feed from the boob.  She lost her appetite and said it was similar to the first trimester nausea.  Awesome.  Apparently, there’s a rare side effect to breast feeding, which is nausea and my wife is one in a million that had it.  Luckily that slowly disappeared.  It still rears its head every once in awhile, but nothing too extreme.

Then after the nausea went away, breastfeeding became extremely painful.  Like to the point that her toes would curl.  Yikes.  That was fun.. not really.

Then we have discovered over the last week and a half that she’s not producing enough milk.  If you see a lactation specialist, they weigh the baby before a feeding, let the mom feed and then weigh him afterward to see how much he took in.  Well, we were having some problems so we went to see the lactation person once and she was extremely helpful.. we thought we had it all figured out.  Then things deteriorated again…

Junior would basically sit at the boob and drink non-stop for almost an hour.  When the hour was up, he’d be in a state of panic.  He would stop latching and just go crazy.  We tried everything, but then we gave him a bottle of pumped milk, he drank another 2 ounces from it and then fell asleep.  This happened multiple times… clearly 50 minutes is not long enough, because my wife’s boobs aren’t giving him enough.  She made another appointment.

This time she had a different expert (what a strange job that would be, by the way) and this lady weighed him and then left for 45 minutes as Stunning breast fed… and then weighed him again and in 45 minutes he drank 1 ounce.  ONE OUNCE!!  After that, he was spastic crying and going crazy.. clearly hungry.  This lactation person though was close to a grade A dummy.  She said he was crying because he was probably having acid reflux.  She said one ounce was enough because “breast milk has more calories than formula”.  Ummm last time I checked, babies go by when their stomach is full not by looking at the nutritional facts on the side of a breast.  (“200% of my daily sodium?  Do you have a light version of your left breast mom?”)

Anyway, Stunning left that appointment in a state of shock.  The lady said that 1 ounce was enough, when we all know it’s not.  The kids an eater.  He’ll down one ounce in 2 minutes and then down another 3 if he’s hungry enough.  Then the fact that a supplement bottle will settle him down makes it clear that acid reflux isn’t a problem.

In the end, Stunning got in contact with another lactation lady from Madela (quite possibly the best company out there) and this lady said that indeed she was very low on milk production.  She suggested Fenugreek.  It’s a supplement that is used to increase milk production.  Well, it’s also used in cheap oatmeal… to make oatmeal smell like maple syrup.  That’s right… a side effect of Fenugreek is that you’ll start to smell like maple syrup.

My wife is going to become a big steaming pile of pancakes.

Yesterday was my first day back at work, as you may have read yesterday… if that post yesterday made any sense at all.  I barely remember writing this.

You don’t really realize how much work you do at work on a daily basis until you’re gone for an extended period.  Then when you come back, there’s a lot to do!  Needless to say, yesterday was a very busy day and beyond that it made it worse when you are also very exhausted.

However, the toughest part by far was being away from my wife and son.  He’s a beautiful baby, but goodness gracious can he be fussy!  I love him to death, but when you see “perfect baby” in the dictionary… it’s not our kid.  He has two main times to be fussy… the first is in the morning from 6am to noon.  The second is from 9pm until midnight.  It’s not fussy that he has colic or something like that, it’s just typical fussiness at inopportune times.

Therefore, the hardest part about going back to work was to leave my wife at home handling it all herself.  For the time I had off, it was truly a two person job.  Now, it’s being forced into a one person job and that’s just not easy.  You combine some pregnancy hormones on top of that and it’s a crazy recipe. 

I came home for lunch, but that was only about 20 minutes (I live 20 minutes from work), so that gave her an opportunity to shower and be separated from the baby some. 

On Sunday night, she asked if I was excited to “get a break”.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I was and I told her that.  The worst part though is that she gets no break!  Well, she will… but by the time she gets a break he’ll be sleeping through the night… or at least for a four hour stretch.

Anyway, the next challenge is to find a routine for us to be on, since our old routine is now bunk.

Almost all kids deal with the thing called jaundice at one point or another.  (Well, I guess it’s usually within the first few days of life that they deal with it, but you get what I mean… it affects a lot of children.)  Junior was one of those kids. 

When we left the hospital, the nurses said there were no signs of jaundice.  24 hours later, his nose had a crisp yellow and the whites of his eyes were not very white anymore.  Therefore, we called the doctor and headed in that day.  When you have a baby, it seems you go to the doctor a lot.

It’s amazing how quickly you can get attachment to your child.  While I knew everything was going to be okay (again, most children get jaundice), it was still tough to know that there is something wrong with your baby.  Of course, it didn’t help that the nurse practitioner messed up the severity.  The first time she told us, and as we left the office, she had us believing that Junior was at “high” risk from jaundice.  In reality, it was moderate.  That’s a big difference for parents who are both good at worrying. 

Anyway, it led to an uncomfortable 24 hour period.  We had to sunbathe Junior:

We also had to feed him more..  Since we were breastfeeding it meant Stunning had a lot of work to do.. Here were the orders: 1) Feed Junior from the boob every three hours.  2) After feeding him give him a bottle of pumped breast milk. 3) Pump breast milk 1.5 hours after the start of a feeding.

That doesn’t sound too bad.  However, when you realize it takes this kid 30 minutes to feed, which means when he’s done feeding, she had 60 minutes before pumping.  Then she’d have to pump for 30 minutes to get enough milk. Then feed him 60 minutes later.  After pumping, she would wash everything, change his diaper, get him to settle down.  She did this for 24 hours.  Talk about torture and making you feel like a milking machine… 

Anyway, after all that work we went back to the doctor the next day and found out his levels had actually gone up.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because increased levels can be sustained as he gets older.  However, he was still at the “moderate” risk level.  This meant we faced another 24 hours of this torture. 

When we went to the doctor’s the next day, we discovered his levels had decreased and we rejoiced.  It was 72 hours of worry, torture, and pretty crazy period of his life.  He’s done with jaundice now though, so we can be happy.

However, I must say, for as bad as Junior had it.   His cousin had it much worse.  He had to go back to the hospital.  He got better after being under a light bath for 24 hours.  Now that’s torture!

Poor little dude.

All girls love at least one TLC show.  Before we got engaged, Stunning loved a show where they’d surprise someone with an engagement.  Many girls love A Wedding Story, a Pregnancy Story, a Baby Story, a Baptism Story…  Anyway, in the vein of TLC, the following is the story of Junior’s birth written by the wife:

Junior was two weeks early and it was quite the shock to everyone (including my doctor) that he came when he did. My big sister, who was also due March 21, had been showing prelabor signs for days…she’d been nesting, her body was giving her the “signs”, and she’d been having irregular contractions. We were all sure that she’d have her little one early last week. On Saturday night (the 6th), my parents and I threw a baby shower for a good friend of ours. I felt great (aside from being enormous and completely bloated) and didn’t feel at all like I was going to go into labor within a matter of hours.

The shower wrapped up and we sat on my parent’s porch with them until about 11:30 just chatting and enjoying the nice weather. John and I went to bed with absolutely NO idea that it was our last night’s sleep without a baby. Around 3:45, I woke up. I didn’t have to go to the bathroom but I’d learned that if you are awake, you may as well go because you’re going to have to go again in a minute anyway. I stood up and took the first step to the bathroom and—CRAP! I peed my pants! I ran to the bathroom and called to John. I said, “John? I think my water just broke. But not really, I think I just peed my pants. I don’t know.” We had a quick google search session to find out whether I was going into labor and decided to go back to sleep (responsible, eh?) because a) only like 30% of women’s water breaks on its own and my mom’s never did so I figured mine wouldn’t either and b) I really thought it was just me wetting myself—the idea of losing bladder control at 9 months pregnant isn’t that bizarre. I woke up a few more times during the night and every time I stood up, I’d wet myself AGAIN! At that point, I was pretty sure Jack was on his way. I woke John up and we decided to head to the hospital “Just in case”. I was still pretty sure they’d send me home and tell me to buy some depends or something. We got to the hospital and pressed the buzzer for them to let us into the Labor and Delivery wing. A woman came back on the speaker and said, “May I help you?” Um…really lady, why else would someone be buzzing that? It was very awkward when I responded, “Umm…I think I’m going to have a baby?”

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. They gave me pitocin to speed up my contractions because I wasn’t having any yet and once the water breaks, the baby needs to get out in 24 hours or the risk of infection increases. So apparently contractions are kind of painful. After a couple hours of dealing with those and squeezing John’s hand into oblivion, I got an epidural. John made the mistake of looking at the needle and decided at that point that he’d keep his eyes averted from my body during the next few hours.  The epidural didn’t hurt that I remember—probably because it felt like nothing compared to the contractions. Drugs are awesome, by the way. I have a friend who is a rockstar and is going to have her baby naturally and I don’t know how she will handle it. Those first few hours of contractions were enough for me to lose my mind. Ashley, you’re awesome. Anyway, I managed to take a nap which was good because my sleep the past few weeks had been rough (especially that night) and I didn’t realize how much energy I’d need to push this little bambino out. We checked into the hospital at 7:30 AM and I began pushing around 5:45. 

Junior arrived at 7:16 PM on March 7, 2010. He was 8 lbs, 3 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. The doctor and nurses all told me how big of a baby he was. They seemed pretty shocked when I informed them that he was 2 weeks early. My doctor didn’t deliver Junior because she wasn’t on call that weekend. She came to see me the next day and said, “Well that was a bit of a surprise.” Indeed it was but thank goodness! I’d have had a 10 pounder if he’d waited until his due date!

Junior scowling at his mom.

Junior’s “Going Home” Outfit. Last summer, I lived in Texas for a clerkship while John was still up in Nebraska. He’s a creeper and made me a coffee mug with a ton of his different faces on it. He said it was “to remember him” or something. It creeped me out. It still creeps me out. Bridget & her friend had this made to continue creeping me out. It says, “Yup, That’s My Dad!”

I may look exhausted and gross, but I don’t care. Look how cute my son is. Woah, my son. That’s weird. 

When we came home, Junior was greeted with some welcoming goodies: A sign on the carport gate, “It’s A Boy!” Wreath, Truman & Boo sporting blue bows, edible bouquet from John’s work colleagues, flowers, and a fridge full of pasta!

We got everything for Junior that he could possibly want.  However, as we walked through a store the other day, I realized he lacked one thing that every child should have.  And that would be a puppet.
 
Ok.  I’ll be honest.  When I saw the puppet, I got it for myself.  A baby doesn’t need a puppet… as a child probably can’t even operate one until they’re at least 5 years old. 
Anyway, as I saw the puppet and realized that I needed him, I had to test him out.  It was much to the chagrin of my wife, as I began to walk around this department store using Harry’s voice (that’s the puppet’s name) and asking her questions.  Harry had just met Stunning, so he needed some answers about her. 
At one point, it came to blows, and Stunning stated, “Who did I marry?!?  Would you just grow up?” Then a sales associate came from behind a stack of clothes and stated, “What the fun in that?”  I told the nice lady thank you and we walked away.. then Harry realized he didn’t say thank you, so he quickly yelled it back to the lady across the store. 
I was then instructed to take the puppet off my hand until we got home. 

My wife decided it would be fun to use a little internet magic.  Last week, I discussed what would happen if Junior took after my looks.  Of course, since she isn’t quite as selfish as I am, she naturally wondered what he would look like if he had both of our faces combined.  (I hear that’s actually what happens in children… they take one person and combine it with another and you get this mix… go figure.)
Anyway, this is what the internet told us our child will look like:

Interesting. It appears this child is actually an adult with some child like characteristics.  Honestly, he looks like a young human Yoda…  Of course, I’m very excited to see he’ll wear a hoody.  Not quite sure how I feel about the jean jacket though, we might have to have a little talk about that.

You’ve probably heard the old adage: Everything is bigger in Texas.  For example, this is a cinnamon roll at a restaurant here in town:

It’s big.  (And in this picture, I look slightly drugged out.)
These are a pair of Cowboy Boots in town:

They’re big.
My wife is a Texan, so when it comes to the pillow she likes to lay her head on at night… she likes a huge, fluffy pillow.  Well, a couple weeks ago she went to the store and tried to go cheap on a pillow.  No dice.  The following is an artist rendition of her head:

All hanging loose and crooked. She gave up on that pillow quickly and returned to the store.  There she found a pack of two pillows for just $5.  Each pillow was too thin, but she knew if she combined forces the combo would be amazing… similar to peanut butter and jelly or milk and chocolate or the Power Rangers.
Now one would think it would be good to combine said pillow in one pillow case.  However, she had another idea.  She would surgically open one case, steal all of its fluff, and place it in the other pillow.  One case, twice the fluff.  She knew when this was complete, she would have her ultimate pillow.
She performed the surgery.  That night she snuggled up with her pillow.   It was then she discovered she had made it too fat.  Like too much peanut butter and jelly with no bread… it doesn’t work.

This is her pillow.  For comparison, I have placed a standard sized compact disk next to the pillow for comparison:

Yes.  It is true.  Everything is bigger in Texas.

Stunning has always had a history of strange dreams.  For some reason, she has dreams where I’m cheating on her and she’s the type of girl that emotions in those dreams spill over into awakedness, to make up a word.  Other times she’ll punch me in the middle of the night.  I’ve been kicked a few times.  She loves to talk in her sleep, sometimes carrying on long conversations where I can’t hear the other side.  She’s called me from her sleep asking where I was (I was driving home, but she thought I was lost.)  And she has a very short temper when she’s in the “in-between state”, so I must be prepared for anything if I accidentally wake her up.  It’s an interesting life I lead at night…

Anyway, with a sleep habit like that, you can imagine that her dreams are probably pretty strange.  However, when you add a pregnancy, things become WHACKO.  Here are two examples and who knows, I might come up with a few more in the next couple weeks as we approach the due date…

A 20/20 Special Report: Twin Pooping Disorder

Can  you imagine how intrigued you’d be if you turned on 20/20 on ABC and saw an entire 60 minute report about the trials and tribulations of Twin Pooping Disorder.  Luckily, in reality, we don’t have to.  However, in the dream state of my wife, it’ll happen and it did. 

Here’s a few facts about Twin Pooping Disorder – It’s the number two killer of women, behind heart disease.  It affects only one twin out of a pair.  It is not the number one killer of men.  The Wayans Brothers are spokespeople for the disease and they try to raise awareness because one them suffer from it.

Here are the logical infallicies with the previous facts – The Wayans Brothers are not twins.  If it only affects one twin, then it would be very difficult to be the number two killer or women.  Why are two men the spokespeople if it affects a lot of women?

Are you wondering what twin pooping disorder is?  Well, it only affects have a set of twins.  It basically means they’re severely constipated and only have a BM one every 2 to 3 weeks.  This means they have to be careful about what they eat.

A quote from the Wayans Brothers:

Waynes Brother #1 - “It really stinks, because I  like cheeseburgers… but I can’t eat them because they’ll be inside me for weeks.

Waynes Brother #2 - “And that’s what so bad about this disease.  I don’t have it, so I can eat a cheeseburger anytime I want.”

Yes, this is a real dream. Yes, she remembered all of these details.  They are now etched in my brain because of their absurdity.

The Forgotten Shower Guest

Are you ever scared you left someone off the invite list?  It’s a list you agonize over for weeks for some events.  Your baby’s shower is one of them.  On the day my wife had her shower, she dreamt that she had made this terrible mistake.

I’m not sure if you know who DMX is, but he is a rapper.  Here are a few facts about DMX:

• He spent much of his adolescence in and out of jail.
• In the summer of 1999, DMX and his wife were arrested and charged for animal cruelty and possession of drugs and weapons after his manager uncle was accidentally shot at a hotel in New Jersey.
• DMX was arrested but later cleared of a stabbing that occurred at a tour stop in Denver.
• DMX was arrested in March 2000 for aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, speeding, failure to signal, driving without a license, failure to notify the DMV of an address change, and possession of marijuana.
• In June 2004, he was arrested at the John F. Kennedy International Airport on charges of cocaine possession, criminal impersonation, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief, menacing, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol while claiming to be a federal agent and attempting to carjack a vehicle.
• On November 18, 2005, DMX was sentenced to 70 days in jail for violating his parole.
• DMX was arrested at a Phoenix mall on suspicion that he gave a false name & Social Security number to a hospital to get out of paying for medical expenses.

As you can see, he’s quite the interesting character.  He also enjoys barking and grunting in his rap songs.

Well, wouldn’t you know it… Stunning left DMX off the guest list and our boy DMX was not too happy about it.  Imagine Stunning’s surprise when he knocked on the door. 

He grunted at her.  He waved his glock around.  He was very angry that she didn’t invite him to the shower.  She pleaded with him to forgive her for the oversight.  He used the nastiest cuss words DMX can use and he let everyone fly…  She told him she just didn’t think he’d be interested in a baby shower.  Well he was… because as he waved his glock around with one hand, he was carrying his gift under his other shoulder.  Yes, DMX bought Junior his Johnson & Johnson’s bath time kit.  I think that’s a very kind gesture.

My wife is all but done in baby preparations.  Of course, if she realizes there is something that needs to be done, it will be done within hours… if not minutes.  She’s a planner in normal life.  Imagine taking the neurosis (and I use that word lovingly) and adding on the natural instinct to prepare a baby’s home before his arrival.  Well, you can imagine what’s happened in my life the past few months.

Junior’s room is ready.  The hospital bags are packed.  The cradle is ready.  Everything on the registries has been purchased (except a couple items that are not necessary on day one of life).  The car set is installed.  The stroller is constructed.  The letters of his name are hung.  I’m telling you people… she’s ready.

Well, the other day, knowing that my cooking can only be performed in large momentous occasions (asking me to cook a simple dinner is like asking Tchaikovsky to write a commercial melody), so I told my wife that she should prepare some food and put it in the freezer.  Therefore, after Junior comes I can take it out of the freezer while she is napping and bake it and handle it myself.  This project required planning on her part and she loved the idea of it. 

Needless to say, it was the next day and she was at the grocery store.  That night, the madness began…

The Ingredients

Preparing the Meats

Halfway Point…. Yes, I said Halfway

Some Midwestern Goodness – The Tater Tot Casserole

The Finished Project

The following meals are now in our freezer ready for me to make:

3 lasagnas
2 manicottis
1 enchilada casserole
2 nights of regular enchiladas
2 nights of green chile chicken enchiladas
3 nights of enchilada casserole
2 nights of shepherd’s pie

Total: 14 meals, people—28 if you count per person.

I thought it was a good idea and it still is a good idea.  I just never thought it would be quite like this…

You read about my sleep graphs.  Take a look at this one:

What you see here is that I slept good from 11 to 1am.   After that things got a little crazy… especially starting at the 3am hour.  Well, I was awake from 3am on because I thought we might be having a baby.

Junior is pretty active, with constant movements and kicks almost continuously now.  However, the other night Molly noticed he wasn’t really moving like he should be.  We did all of the normal stuff we do to wake him up.  We prodded.  We poked.  We shook (lightly, of course).  Instead, he did his best to act like nothing was happening.  I think it was a big game to him. 

Molly called the doctor’s office and got the answering service.  She explained the situation to which the man replied, “Ma’am, I’m just the answering service.  Tell me what you want to do.”  He was rude.  She had the doctor paged.

The doctor called and said, “Well, I’m not going to tell you not to worry about it, so you can come in if you want.”  Wow.  Umm.. Thanks?

Therefore at 4:15am, we headed into the doctor’s office.  Labor and Delivery… here we come.  Just to make things surreal we also grabbed our overnight bag.  When we got to the office, we even signed documents in case they needed to get Junior into the world of the “Not Living In a Sac of Water” right away.  That was surreal. 

Then we went and hooked Stunning up to some monitors and Junior still slumbered away.  His heart rate was strong, but still very little movement.  The nurse frowned.  Then she instructed my wife to get on her side and drink this huge tub of ice water.  Well, apparently he didn’t like being stuck next to a giant bag of ice water, because he woke up immediately and started kicking and pushing and doing the regular things.

The rest of the day it was more of the same.  The due date is March 21 and it looks like he has no plans to leave his little hut before then.  In fact, we even made a routine exam appointment for March 23!  Maybe if he lasts long enough, he can be born on my birthday; March 27.  You know what they… like father like son!  ::cue laugh sign::

They always say the last trimester is the most uncomfortable and I AGREE.  I’m not talking about my wife, I’m talking about me. 

Stunning is not in a good state right now.  She’s got a cold.  She’s got a giant basketball in her stomach:

You try and sleep with that in your stomach.  It moves too!! (Very similar to Alien.)

The trick for the husband is to find a way to manage his own sleep schedule when his wife in the same bed is unable to sleep at all.  Here are a few things that I, as the husband, am dealing with – turning over is a huge deal for her.  At this point, turning over in bed requires a feat of strength similar to those strongman shows where the guys have to move a refrigerator of bricks.  I also have a tough time sleeping if there are rhythmic noises and unfortunately breathing is a bit more difficult when there’s someone in the pushing against every vital organ.  And while stunning will be appalled that I’m writing this, but she does have an occasional “snore”.  Beyond that, there’s the constant urine breaks and the occasional strange dreams (we’ll discuss those in more detail later).  Needless to say, there are some interruptions to my sleep pattern.

The first thing a scientist should do is analyze.  Therefore, I bought a $0.99 iPhone App that measures your sleep cycles.  That’s right… THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT! 

Anyway, here’s a decent night’s sleep:

It’s not the best.  However, here’s a night where there was little rest for the weary:

Not a lot of deep sleep there.

Now some couples separate at this time of the pregnancy in order to sleep. We’ve decided not to do that.  Basically, because we only have one bed in the house and there’s not a good place to sleep otherwise.  I don’t sleep well on couches anyway and she should be in a bed… not a couch in her current condition.

Anyway, to survive this, I’ve noticed a couple things work.  First of all, I sleep with my ears away from her.  It’s sad, but this is not a state conducive to cuddling.  The second tip is a set of ear plugs.  Hate to say it, but this takes care of the breathing and the inevitable grunts as she attempts to roll over.  With these two tiny tips, my sleep ability has improved some. 

This wasn’t the nicest post.  Basically, blaming my wife for all of my woes and giving advice to wear ear plugs so you don’t have to hear your wife… but you know… in the ninth month of a pregnancy, you do what you gotta do.  Anyway, this is all just a little training for a few weeks time, when I won’t be allowed to wear ear plugs and I’ll get woken up by a baby… and not my wife.

I’ll get a good night’s sleep though when all the kids go off to college, so it’s not big deal.

I mentioned yesterday that I thought anorexia was more of an addiction than anything else.  I think this is a good description for it.  If you asked me if there was an “AHA!” moment where I realized my wife had a problem, I would tell you no.  It was more of a realization across many months.  When she started losing weight, it did become an obsession.  There was one summer I think she could have been diagnosed with exercise bulimia.  However, things would come and go and when I thought there was a problem it would disappear. 

Therefore, I think I always knew there could be a problem, but I don’t think I ever saw the problem develop in the way it was actually there.  It’s like seeing your child grow six inches.  You don’t really see it happen, because you see the kid every day.  However, if you were to look at one picture next to another, it would be very evident.  I think that’s where it was.  She slowly widdled away things she was allowed to do, allowed to eat, not allowed to do/eat.  I saw the slow progression, knew something was happening, but never could see the “forest for the trees”.  Anyway, the following are her words:

It’s embarrassing, first of all. It’s completely embarrassing to me that I let myself get so wrapped up in something as trivial as my appearance that I let it hurt me and my husband so very much. It’s embarrassing that I hold myself out to be this strong, independent woman and that I let a stupid number on a scale dictate my life for so long. There are people out there with REAL problems—cancer, infertility, financial troubles, AIDs—and I am worried about being skinny? I focused my days on whether I was the skinniest person in the room and if I wasn’t, I was a failure (and by the way, I could NEVER always be the skinniest person in the room. So that was a good yardstick for success. Way to set yourself up for disappointment.) It’s truly embarrassing. But if I have learned one thing in recovery, it is that I am far from alone in this. I am a statistic. So many people struggle with this issue and I thought that maybe if I made my story known, other people would realize that they (or someone they know) have a problem and can fix it before it gets unfixable.

For the record, I know that to someone who has never struggled with this, eating disorders seem extremely selfish. I’m not disagreeing with you. Prior to developing one myself, I always thought that people with eating disorders were selfish and that all they would have to do is start eating. Yes, at their core, eating disorders are selfish—they are about control and being the best and worrying about yourself and your looks more than anything else. But they are NOT as easy as “just eat.” You would never think that treating alcoholism is as easy as “just stop drinking” so I’m not sure why people think that it is that easy with eating disorders. So forgive me for being so slow in my recovery—but it was hard.

The Beginning 

So I guess I’ll start from the beginning? I was a nice chunkster in High School. Not a big old fatty but I had some girth to me. It was my own fault: I ate french fries and cheese sticks for lunch every.single.day. I had breakfast tacos multiple times a week and ate a ton at one sitting for dinner. I was just unhealthy. When I went away to college, I remained unhealthy…college food sucked and the only thing I liked in the cafeteria was grilled cheese and french fries…for every meal.

Then, for some reason, I decided I wanted to lose weight. My mom and I started Weight Watchers. For the record, I think Weight Watchers is a FANTASTIC program that really focuses on healthy weight loss. I did, in fact, lose a healthy amount of weight and at the point where I reached a healthy weight, they told me to stop losing weight. I just didn’t listen. So anyway, over the course of 1-2 years (junior & senior year of college), I lost about 40 pounds and was really feeling good about myself.

Then that sweet, baby-face boy proposed to me. And I decided that I wanted to lose just a couple more pounds before the wedding. I remember counting calories very closely but I never went without eating—I just ate as healthy as I could. For the most part, I was just in shape that day.

I had spent the summer working out with a trainer so that I’d be nice and toned on my wedding day. I look at that picture now and I remember how proud I was of how I looked: I had worked hard and I finally felt really, really pretty. If only I could have frozen that moment in time and left it at that.