Dad Stuff

Over on ask.mefi I threw together some random thoughts on the first bits of being a Dad; I wanted to capture them here, too:

My wife’s best friend from high school was a support person during the delivery. It worked really well - we’re not best buds, but we get along well, and having someone there who could go get wheat packs or cups of water or whatever, or stay with my wife if I needed a toilet break or food, was absolutely fantastic. It has to be the right person, but if you can swing someone both of you are happy with, it makes it heaps easier. The fact she’s a professional photographer so she could take happy snaps of the new family was just a bonus.

Having some snacks for the labour? Sounds wierd, I know, but it was great when some friends dropped by to deliver some eats. 27 hours of labour, well, my wife wasn’t exactly in an eating mood, but something to keep my blood suger up was welcome.

My daughter was 3220g on delivery. It’s one of those things that the experience etched in my mind. It’s the sort of thing that’ll go after everything else. It’s that kind of experience.

The weirdest thing was that after 27 hours of labour and an early morning delivery, people looked at my wife, looked at me, and the general consensus was I looked worse than her. A little odd, you know?

Job 1 pretty much became managing access. Everyone wants to come and play with the baby and Talk About The Experience. If your partner likes that, great. If, more likely, she wants some rest, some time with her baby, and some time with you, well, you need to fend folks off. Relatives with a sense of entitlement are the worst on that front...

The first month or so is a bit of a blur, but mostly a good blur. I discovered that the single most relaxing, blissful, magical sleep in the world is the sleep of a dad with a baby sleeping on him. She’d flop down, face-first, head resting on my neck, and I’d be gone within minutes, no matter how hard I tried to sleep. Sleep when the baby sleeps, indeed.

I took 5 weeks off work (unpaid, since I’m a contractor), and wish I could have afforded more. It was precious bonding time with my daughter, support for my wife. I cried leaving the house most morning when I had to start going back to work. I felt like I was tearing my heart out every morning. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done emotionally.

Don’t be surprised by the sheer contempt often demonstrated to fathers. For my daughter’s second round of immunisation jabs a nurse snatched her out of my arms to “comfort her properly.” Don’t be shy about getting angry at that crap. I had her sacked from the medical clinic our family uses.

That shitty situation was merely a high point on a mountain of subtle through to overbearing unpleasantness: my daughter was going to carry her mother’s surname, but (unprompted by me), Maire was so ticked off at the hospital’s generic treatment of dads that when she was given the naming forms, Ada ended up with my surname instead.

Make a connection. I’ve got little greater contempt for the idea, repeated to me a few times, that an infant is “mothers’ business” and she should be making all the calls, and experience, not only of my own, but of friends and the advice of midwives and Plunket nurses, reinforces that contempt.

Handling babies is a skill, and the earlier you get comfortable dressing, changing, burping, comforting, and generally interacting and looking after your kid, the better you’ll be at it; that’s one reason, but it’s the mid to long term that’s really important: I know guys who spent the first 6 - 12 months with little to do with the baby, and they spiral into a sort of vicious circle where mum does everything because dad is hopeless and dad is hopeless because he never gets left to cope and learn, and they’ve subsequently spent literally years learning how to connect with their kids.

And the mothers... they burn out. My wife flirted with post-partum depression, and the first thing her Plunket nurse wanted from her was a run-down of who did what around the house and with the kid. I was at work for the conversation, but the nurse, who specialised in these situations, told my wife that when there’s an overload contributing to driving a mother into “baby blues”, half the time she has to give the dad a bollocking to get him pulling his weight, and the other half she has to drill into the mother that she has to let other people look after the kid sometimes. And yes, that means dad. Get into healthy patterns from the start.

On top of that... you’re going to be making decisions about your child together for the best part of two decades. Get in the habit early on.

House-proud? Get over it. You have a baby, if people don’t like that you can’t be arsed putting laundry away, fuck ‘em.

Comforting babies: I often had an easier time of it than my wife. It’s common talking to a few other parents, as well; we put it down to the fact that small babies can’t really tell if they’re upset because they’re hungry, tired, sitting in their own shit, or have wind, or just need a cuddle. But when they smell that breast milk, well, they’re upset, the boobs are there - that must be the answer! Then they get agitated about not getting a mouthful of tit, even if that’s not going to help. Since Daddy doesn’t smell of milk, little Miss 1 month old went along with, say, laying on me until we both went to sleep.

Try and fall into a routine that gives mum some breaks. I’m an early riser, so I’d get up at 6, take Ada away, get her out of her night gear, changed, into fresh clothes, ready for the first feed, make breakfast for my wife, and then get ready for work. Getting home I’d take Ada, play, snuggle, whatever. My wife’s evening bath would be sacrosanct: unless the baby actually started squirting blood or something, I was on my own for 30 - 60 minutes. Small things, all of them, but part of trying to keep everyone sane and happy.

The first 3 months Ada was pretty low-maintenance, for me; adore her, change her, dress her, play, what have you. Tiny babies are, food and wakefulness aside, generally pretty easygoing. Around 6 months it felt like one of those hockey-stick graphs. “Sleeping on daddy’s knee while he argues on the Internet” was cool at 2 months, but a six month old needs way more active attention. Don’t be surprised if you have a storm, a lull, and then start getting really busy again.

Ada was at her friend Jar’s fifth birthday party today and discovered water pistols for the first time; she was quite delighted.

(I know, I know, I’m most remiss not to have introduced them before. As penance I allowed myself to be shot several times by an initially nervous but quickly gleefully transgressive four year old.)

Most of the play consisted of rather tame use of said pistols: Jar was washing the windows of the house when we arrived; subsequent adventures tending to consist not of soaking each other and squealing, but rather squirting balloons, streamers, and other inanimate objects. At one point, Ada and a trio of the boys came upon a pink flamingo statue, and squirted it. “We’re cleaning it,” announced one of them.

A gimlet gleam came to Ada’s eye, and she positively danced with excitement at the thought: “Let’s kill it!”

Three small boys shuffled back very quickly. Ada relented upon seeing their rather horrified reactions.

I put this in the same category as her fairy-mermaid games, which feature Ada, the fairy, with her fairy sword and armour, which are made of “the hardest metal in the world”, killing monsters which have the temerity to menace the mermaids (such as her mother, Lias, and from time to time, her father). Either that or I’ve been reading doo much Dahl and Fleming to her.

Fuck you, gender stereotypes.

In more fuck you, gender stereotypes, last weekend, she got to indulge her interest in cars; the folks from Independent Prestige had set up shop in a storefront to show off some of their Gallardos, Bentleys, and Aston Martins. Ada was taken by the yellow Gallardo, delighted to discover she could almost see over the roof, the matching stitching of the upholstery, and the marching yellow of the brakes; she was enraptured when one of the Prestige team opened the door and ushered her in. She clambered around the driver’s seat; sadly, it’s the closest she’s likely to get to a house-price sports car.

Turning (eventually) away from the Gallardo and its white Spyder twin, she gave the Astons a cursory glance, but was fascinated by the Bentley Flying Spur, with its vast interior, wooden trim, and the separate air conditioning controls for the passengers, an amentity she requested, a week later, for our next car. I was forced to explain that “I would like us to have a car like the Bentley” is a request incompatible with my wallet.

In between she’s been attending the excellent Capital Kaizen school program. She was quite overawed by the occasion and the quality of the other kids (most of whom are at least a year older) on the first morning, but hit her stride after an hour or so, and hit the ground running the next day. The coaching team, from Stu through to his younger assistants, were absolutely fantastic with a little girl who’s desperate to reclaim the simple fluid joy she had for the first 6 months she played. Really well-run, heaps of fun for the kids, and Ada’s keen to go again.

There has been a certain amount of “when the hell did that happen?” in the last couple of months because, well, today Ada turned four. One of those paradoxes of major life changes; I have been a father forever, and yet it only happened yesterday, and when the hell did she gain four years?

It’s been a rolling two days of celebration; yesterday was her party day. On her third birthday Ada wanted more adult friends than children; this time around she invited 15 kids and only a small body of adults; they were scattered across friends from creche, soccer, Junglerama, Alliance Francaise, as well as children she’s know via our friends. Last year she enjoyed a ride on the Eastbourne Ferry for a play in Days Bay and lunch in a cafe; this year we booked a party at the Wellington Museum of City and Sea.

It turned out to be a fantastic venue. They laid on a room with face-painting, colouring-in, a guided tour of the museum with things they thought would appeal to the kids (including their mock-holographic movie with Maori creation myths), a visit from a giant costume dog (patterned after Paddy the Wanderer, a then well-known character on the waterfront in the inter-war years. Lunch was via Wholly Bagels, and there were little gift packs for the kids to take away. As far as I can tell the kids loved it, finishing up with them roaring around their big room with balloons in a race/balloon fight they worked out amongst themselves.

(Ada was going to wear her party clothes, but instead opted to wear her football uniform, having come straight from the game.)

All in all it was a fantastic day, with Ada coming home zonked out and spending most of the afternoon resting on the sofa and watching Microcosmos after explaining gently “I would like some time on my own.”

Today was to be much quieter; we both took the day off work. Morning was the unveiling of The New Bed. Or rather, the bits for the New Bed; originally we’d bought the standard single version of the Treehouse kit bed from Inhabit Design with an eye to building it up with the ladder and wendy house; this year was when we did that. Ada knew it was coming, but the whole business was deeply exciting for her. I managed to knock the extra kit bits on before breakfast, and then after we began to re-organise the room.

Disaster struck.

I had climbed on newly heightened bed to re-organise some things on the wall when I found myself standing on the floor amidst the ruins of the support struts that hold the slats in place, with a small girl having hysterics to one side at her broken birthday bed.

Pretty reasonable reaction if you ask me.

This was... unexpected. And not good. Definitely not good. For one thing, a broken birthday present at 9:30 is not what you’re after. Nor is the loss of the bed your daughter sleeps in. Not, come to that, is the thought that while, yes, I am quite large, I’m only as big as three or four hefty kids and shouldn’t it stand up to that?

Inspection showed the slat supports had come away, staples ripped out. At this point neither of us was feeling full of good-will. Inhabit, however, did a lot to change this; when they found out what happened, they mentioned that the Production Manager for the factory happened to be in the store, and he’d be happy to come up to the house and see what he could do. By 10 am John was inspecting it, had come to the conclusion it was a straightfoward fix, and offered to come back after a planned visit to a family member. At 12 he re-appeared, fixing the slat supports back to the bed with screws which, he made it clear, were the things that should have been used at the factory in the first place. He speculated that someone had stapled and then forgot to finish the job properly; that speculation was delivered with the air of a man who would be Having Words with someone, possibly several someones, about the Right Way To Do Things when he got back to the factory.

So, on the one hand: boo for the three-year old manufacturing defect. Yay for the incredibly quick setting right that saved Ada’s birthday.

I’ve been running through some of the Calvin and Hobbes collection; I was struck that we seem to have lucked into a kid who seems to have Calvin’s wild imagination, oddball sense of humour, without the bratiness or ADD. I’ve spent a lot of time re-reading C&H and giggling inanely.

The first Tui of spring

I took myself on my first-ever trip on the Johnsonville line to fullfil a long-standing promise to Ada to go on a train with her; a perfect day for it, given the clear, warm day and blue skies. I was surprised how pretty they trip was; as well as the appropriately exciting tunnels and bridges, the views across rich green gullies to a fantastic harbour were superb. Not quite superb enough to make me move to one of the suburbs on the JVille line to enjoy it every day, mind.

Je fauchée ma clavicule à judo la semaine denier; mon médecin mourait. Il n’est pas mauvais, ma fille gagner un prix por joueuse la jour á le foot!

Ada started working on the concept of a will recently; while she’s had the book Down The Back of the Chair for a while now, she’s clearly been mentally eliding the reference until she focused suddenly on it in the weekend. What is this “long-lost will of Uncle Bill”? How does it relieve the problem of not being able to afford to fix the errant car? After some explanation (“When people die, they don’t need their money any more, and they sometimes leave it to people”) the principle was firmly grasped.

A little later in the weekend, Ada sidled up to me and said, “I wish we had a long-lost will. You would be able to stay at home more and play with me.”

One of discoveries Sunday’s first excursion into the wonderful world of kiddy football was unexpected side effect of having spent three or so years working on concepts of playing nice (sharing, taking turns and so on), which is the furious, pitiable wailing that accompanies the discovery that in competitive sport you have to take your turn, not wait for it.

Much howling, a mix of self-pitying and righteous indignation, ensued. This is, the coach/referee assured me, entirely normal with three years olds, and I guess it would be. But still: an unexpected side effect; it encourages me in the belief, though, that the whole business is a good thing, not least because while “playing nice with others” is a life skill that’s valuable, so is “I’ll go get it myself, no-one’s going to give it to me.”

Other than that, and a plaintitave “I’m too cold, I want to go home”, swiftly fixed by another layer of jacketing, we had a ball, and Ada managed an absolute gem of a perfectly-executed tackle, timing a textbook interception of another player on his run into her goal.

After the game Ada worked on her dribbling some more, controlling the ball through 90 and 180 degree turns, and frustrating her mother’s attempts to regain control of the ball. I’m looking forward to see how she’ll handle next week.

Ada veut faire du foot. Je ne sais pas; mais toute façon papa, je aide.

Aujourd’hui nous faisons du coursé; nous sommes rentré avec protege-tibia et beaucoup petit les chaussures de football.

One of the more annoying arguments that I have noticed creeping into the arguments of vaccine deniers, as their arguments based on the fraudulent junk science produced by a shill for a law firm are being more widely understood as disreputable nonsense, is the notion of choice; choice is, apparently, an irrefutable, unassailable right; one may not over-ride the choices of parents who wish to expose their children to disease.

This one really gets on my tits.

My minor objection, one which is commonly voiced with regard to this line of argument, is that because vaccination relies to herd immunity to function effectively across a population this is a choice which is not self-contained. It’s an argument that ought to be treated with the contempt we’d hold for someone arguing they ought to be able to drive drunk because they’re only risking their own life—unless they only drive on private roads, that’s simply untrue. Even the most fervent libertarians usually recognise that the right to swing your fist ends at my nose; the right to kill your kids with whooping cough likewise ends at my daughter’s respiratory tract.

Which leads me into the second, less commonly articulated, but, to my mind, more important point. Children are, in fact “someone else.” We do not allow parents to decide not to educate their children, or to beat them, or hire them out as prostitutes. If parents claim this is undue interference in their rights we say, well, tough luck—because my right as a parent ends at my daughter’s nose. I may not starve her, beat her, or deprive her of an education. Why should I be allowed to prevent her from receiving provably valuable medical treatments?