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Dear Holly: Our Father’s Day Weekend Visitors

8 weeks.

Dear Holly: Our Father’s Day Weekend Visitors

Dear Holly,

Mommy and I have been friends with John and Amelia Kennedy for as long as we’ve been married; nearly 8 years now. I will never forget how back in 2011, when our family moved back to Alabama for nearly a year, they visited us from Nashville. That meant the world to us.

A few months ago they had their first child, a son named Hudson. Our family visited him when he was first born. This past weekend they came to see you, as well as our “new” house. (And they were very kind to bring us vegan meals, as well!)

It was fun (and funny) to see you and Hudson interact with each other. While you have seen two other girl babies, your cousin Darla and your friend Hanna, I don’t suppose you’ve met a boy baby before.

It was inevitable that we as the parents would joke that you and Hudson will go to prom together in about 16 years: Holly Joy and Hudson James.

Nonna and Papa were also at our house for the weekend. It was their 39th wedding anniversary. I took Papa and your brother Jack to the Monster Jam event in downtown Nashville.

Dear Holly: Our Father’s Day Weekend Visitors

Papa was surprised how you were able to sleep through all of Jack’s noisy playing. At one point, Papa was using a Lego snake to try to bite Jack when we walked by. It was hilarious because Jack seemed genuinely afraid of the snake, even though he knew it wasn’t real. Through it all, you remained asleep while Nonna held you on the couch.

Dear Holly: Our Father’s Day Weekend Visitors

Once you woke up, Nonna entertained you by pretending to feed one of Jack’s stuffed animals your bottle. You were quite into.

Even though you won’t remember it, take it from me, you had a really fun weekend with family and friends.

Love,

Daddy

Dear Holly: Our Father’s Day Weekend Visitors

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Dear Holly: Your Weekend of Visitors

6 weeks.

Dear Holly,

You are a popular little girl. This past weekend, our family mainly stayed home and got to chill out while the activities came to us.

First, on Saturday, Mommy’s boss’s wife and son came to see you, making your brother Jack’s day by bringing him a new Lego set, which he built by the time they left.

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Shortly after, Mommy’s good friend from work, Lena, came along with her husband Mohamed and their young daughter Hanna, who is just a few months older than you.

We placed you and Hanna next to each other on a blanket to see how you would interact. I pointed out to everyone that it was if you were looking into the mirror, seeing your reflection.

Hanna’s Mommy Lena added, “Yes, the Middle Eastern version of herself.” We all laughed, because with your fairer, pink-toned skin, it sort of is the difference between Elsa from Frozen and Jasmine from Aladdin.

Dear Holly: Your Weekend of Visitors

I know the two of you will grow up knowing each other, as we have been friends with her family for a while now.

The next day, on Sunday, your brother Jack’s longtime friend Madison and her family came to visit you.

Jack and Madison attended the same preschool for several years.

Her family also graciously brought us dinner, which for a vegan/vegetarian family… I know might seem a bit intimidating.

But just like the last family who brought us dinner, the Crawfords, they brought us a fresh vegan pizza from Whole Foods.

Dear Holly: Your Weekend of Visitors

Sometimes it’s nice to be able to just stay at home at chill out at the house for the weekend, which is basically what we did. But at the same time, we were able to see people.

This past weekend was undeniably your weekend of visitors. As for this coming weekend, we’ll be taking you and your brother Jack to the Reptile Show. We’ll see how you do on that outing to help determine how often in the future we’ll be able to get out of the house with you.

We would love to take another road trip… like to Florida. But the reality of it is, it’s probably not wise to take a baby like you on a road trip right now.

 Love,

Daddy

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Postpartum: My 10 Steps of Caring for a Newborn during the First 6 Weeks

Postpartum: My 10 Steps of Caring for a Newborn during the First 6 Weeks

We survived! Yay for us! With Baby Holly turning 6 weeks old as of yesterday, my wife and I have apparently made it through what I hear is the toughest part of the postpartum days: the first 6 weeks.

That first month or so is when you as the parent must figure out the details on what works best for your baby regarding sleeping schedules, formulas, and diapers. It’s a culture shock as a parent, even after already having one child. I knew it would be challenging going into it.

However, I must have kept my expectations lower than I needed to because, honestly, it hasn’t been that bad!

Postpartum: My 10 Steps of Caring for a Newborn during the First 6 Weeks

Despite us managing our newborn’s infant acid reflux, for the post part, things have been fairly predictable. There have really been just 10 simple steps to caring for our newborn during the first 6 weeks:

1)      Feed her an ounce, burp her. Repeat until each ounce is gone.

2)      Change her diaper.

3)      Play with her by talking to her and helping her do exercises.

4)      Take a cute picture of her.

5)      While you teach yourself newborn photography, by the default of taking so many pictures, Instagram your work to show it off to friends and family.

6)      Change her diaper.

7)      Wrap her up in a blanket and rock her to sleep with the pacifier in her mouth,

then place her in the crib.

8)      Change her diaper, now that she finally fell asleep but wet herself again.

9)      Rock her back to sleep and place her in the crib again.

10)  Repeat two and a half hours later when she wakes up again.

Postpartum: My 10 Steps of Caring for a Newborn during the First 6 Weeks

Those are my 10 simple steps. This has been my life for the past 6 weeks.

Granted, these 10 steps have been my wife’s reality more than mine, since she’s on maternity leave, but I still work during the day. A lot of the time my main responsibility is to take care of our 5 and a half year-old son Jack while my wife Jill takes care of the baby.

This past weekend I celebrated the end of those first 6 weeks by shaving off my postpartum beard, as well as getting a hair trim. As you can see though, I was unable to overcome the temptation of shaving (and Instagramming) in stages.

Postpartum: My 10 Steps of Caring for a Newborn during the First 6 Weeks

Postpartum: My 10 Steps of Caring for a Newborn during the First 6 Weeks

And if my eyes look bloodshot and cross-eyed, and I look like I need some ginseng because of lack of sleep, it’s probably true.

As for Baby Holly, she doesn’t have that problem so much…

Postpartum: My 10 Steps of Caring for a Newborn during the First 6 Weeks

Fare thee well.

Postpartum: My 10 Steps of Caring for a Newborn during the First 6 Weeks

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Dear Holly: You Met Your Alabama Cousins on Memorial Day Weekend 2016

5 weeks.

Dear Holly: You Met Your Alabama Cousins on Memorial Day Weekend 2016

Dear Holly,

Whereas a few weeks ago you met your Pennsylvania cousins when they drove down to Tennessee, this past weekend we drove to Alabama to meet your only cousins on my side of the family.

Not only did you meet your cousins Darla (who is 6 months old) and Calla (who is turning 5 years old in a few weeks, so we celebrated her birthday while we were all together), but you also met your Uncle Andrew and Aunt Dana (my sister), as well as your Great Uncle Al and Great Aunt Sharon.

Dear Holly: You Met Your Alabama Cousins on Memorial Day Weekend 2016

It just so happened that you and Darla happened to own and be wearing the same “Super Awesome” shirt.

Nonna and Aunt Dana both commented you act like a little kitten. I had never thought about that before, but I totally see it now.

One of my favorite pictures I took from the trip was when I was packing up our bags in the hatchback of my Honda Element and saw Papa saying goodbye to your brother Jack. It appeared Papa was kissing Jack on the forehead, meanwhile you witnessed the event in wonder.

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I love the look on your face, as a month-old baby, as you tried to figure out what was going on in the seat next to you.

At this point in your life, you’re still probably trying to distinguish who any person is beyond Mommy, me, and Jack.

Because right now your life pretty much revolves around your immediate needs being met, that’s about the extent of your understanding of love.

As you get older, you will be able to understand how much your family loves you, beyond just feeding you, changing your diapers, and helping you get to sleep.

Seriously, that look on your face is very special to me. It’s you looking at your future; the ability to truly understand love beyond dirty diapers and formula in a bottle.

Love,

Daddy

Dear Holly: You Met Your Alabama Cousins on Memorial Day Weekend 2016

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Dear Holly: The Postpartum Beard and My Ability to Burp You

1 month old.

https://familyfriendlydaddyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/beard1.jpg?w=680

Dear Holly,

I love having a little baby girl! I really do. I love knowing I get to come home each day and hold you, talk to you in my special baby voice, stare at you, change your diapers, feed you, and perhaps most important to Mommy… burp you.

Oh yes, that’s one of the biggest ways I can help Mommy take care of you right now. It’s currently my exclusive niche.

Mommy actually depends on me to get that done each time either one of us feeds you. I have a special yet effortless way of sort of tossing you over my shoulder. You instantly seem at peace, as you do this combination of a purr and a grunt. Usually within a couple minutes, a huge burp escapes you.

It makes me feel good to know I have a new official super power.

You are now a month-old and I do admit, it doesn’t seem you should be that old already. The time has flown by. It hasn’t been chaotic, though. Mommy and I have naturally worked out a system to share the load of caring for you.

Your brother Jack is the only one at our house who gets to sleep through the night, but that’s alright. Mommy and I are teamed up to care for you as you need to be fed, changed, and burped every 3 hours.

In the midst of all this, I have accidently invented something I call… the Postpartum Beard.

I’m a low-maintenance, low-overhead kind of guy. Therefore, I traditionally just shave once a week, every Sunday; so I’m only clean-shaven that one day and then quite stubbly for the rest of the week.

This has been my tradition for quite a while now. But now, it’s clearly been more than a week since I’ve used my Norelco.

I know people typically associate the word “postpartum” with depression, but the word simply means “following childbirth.”  I have a feeling I’m not the only dad of a newborn out there who like me, accidentally ended up with a beard.

The Postpartum Beard demonstrates something we as happily married men already know, something that apparently the media will never choose to legitimately celebrate:

As far as all of my friends who are dads, we are all very involved as parents; even with infants.

I personally don’t know of even one happily married dad who doesn’t get up in the middle of the night to help his wife with the crying baby. To me, that’s simply a given.

That doesn’t make us heroes or even special. It makes us good modern husbands and good modern fathers, which is something that we find much identity in as men, here in the year 2016. It’s masculine to sacrifice sleep and hobbies for our babies and kids.

And it’s pretty masculine to have a super power of being able to burp a baby.

You and I are a good match. Thanks for burping so easily for me.

 Love,

Daddy