Today, you turned one year old.  Happy first birthday.

So many wonderful things have happened since I last wrote to you here.  At six months, you were entirely dependent on us to move you from place to place.  Then, as the weeks went by, you started to lean forward to grab toys that were just out of reach, and, one day, you lifted your body up on one leg and scooched forward.  Transportation!  Today, you are hobbling along very well, and we are very much of the opinion that you will skip crawling and go straight to walking.

I’ve been remiss in documenting your day to day achievements, but I can tell you that, just this past week, you pulled yourself up to a standing position, let go, and stood, completely unsupported, for a few seconds.  You know what this means, right?  Standing leads to stepping, stepping leads to running, and soon the cats will flee from you.  Actually, they kind of already do that.

Food.  Last week, you ate real chicken for the first time when we were out at a restaurant.  Now, we feed you bits of things that we’re eating, and you are enjoying that very much.  And now, as of your first birthday, the only food that you’ve tried that you absolutely hate is broccoli.  Must be a texture thing.  We’re still trying to get you to pick up food with your fingers and feed yourself, which is funny considering that you’ll gnaw on cardboard coasters and such.

Your first birthday party is two days from now, on Saturday, and we’re all very excited.  I’ve got three pork shoulders in the fridge, and tomorrow I’ll be picking up ribs, and Saturday will be all about you, barbecue, cake, and cupcakes.

Random Notes Before I Forget

1.  You love Family Hug.  You can’t get enough of Family Hug.

2.  You lean in for forehead kisses.  I did not teach you this.  You just started doing it when your Mom was in Chicago.  This is very awesome.

3.  You love other children and are very social.

4.  You seem to have a liking for music from the 50’s and folk music.  I have no idea where you got this from.

5.  You like to try to roll Max, our orange cat.  Did I mention Max has the patience of a saint?

6.  Your favorite toy is a dingy Fisher Price walker that has a consignment tag of $1.75 on it.  Molly and Vince, our next door neighbors, let us borrow it.  You are fast and deadly when you are driving it.

7.  On your 1st birthday, you went to the Victory Brewing Company with your parents and your grandfather.  Yes, Georgiana, your first birthday was spent in a bar.

Love,

Your Dad

Dear Georgiana,

You are six months old today, so happy half-birthday!  You’ve changed so much, even in the past few weeks, that it’s hard to keep up with all of your milestones.  Let’s see, in no particular order – you have one tooth, you’re getting comfortable eating solid foods, and you’ve had your first trip to the emergency room.  Those are only the biggest things – there are so many other smaller achievements, ones that we see every day, that I will probably forget to tell you about.

Even though having teeth is something that all of us take for granted, seeing that little edge of enamel crest above your lower gum line was quite a treat for your Mom and me.  You are a drooling monster during all of this, but you seem to have taken to the discomfort of teething even better than we had expected, and the pediatrician says that she can see a mouthful
of other teeth just waiting to make their debut.  For now, you’ll have to be happy with one.

For the record, your very first solid food was an organic apple, pureed. You sat on the couch while we strapped a plastic bib that was the size of your torso around your neck, and your Mom pushed the spoon into your mouth.
Seeing your face light up at the first “real” food was such a delight, and I so look forward to introducing you to an entire world of new tastes.  You love apples and bananas.  Not so crazy about pears.

The emergency room was quite an adventure.  You will not remember this, which is why I’m telling you that you’ve had a cold or a cough for about two weeks.  On Easter Sunday, you sounded so wheezy that your great aunt told us that we should take you to the hospital because you had bronchitis. Since she’s a nurse, we took her advice and brought you in.  Ultimately, it was not as bad as it seemed, and you’re already well on the mend without any drugs or other medical treatments.  And we discovered that you really like playing with crisp hospital sheets, so that’s a plus.

You babble all of the time, and I ‘m sure you know in your heart that we can understand you (even though we really can’t).  You like to stand up when you hold onto our fingers, and we’re thinking that you may not spend very much time crawling before you make that leap to walking around.  You’ve discovered that you can grab things (like plastic rings, or toys, or hair, or earrings and necklaces) with your fingers, but you haven’t yet progressed to picking things up.

That’s all I can think of for now, although I’m sure to remember something else just as soon as I publish this.  Oh, well.

Love,

Dad

My coworker came in after having been out for a week on paternity leave.  He was a nice guy, but one who had taken a job with a scope of responsibility that was much bigger, broader, and nastier than what had been presented to him in the interview.  Because of this, I would only know him for five months, but our conversation that morning would remain with me to this very day.

“Is it normal,” he asked, “to not feel any connection with your baby?”

Having no children of my own at the time, I told him that I really wasn’t qualified to answer the question.  He seemed genuinely worried, and I felt bad for him.  From the little that I knew of him, based mainly on his hushed, frustrated telephone conversations with his wife, I would have guessed that he agreed to have a child just to keep the peace.  He seemed to be the type of husband who, by default, always agreed to everything.  The job was not a good fit for him, and he soon left the company after several weeks of making a go of it.

I recalled this conversation shortly after we learned that we were going to be parents.  After doing some research, since I was now very much invested in knowing the answer to my coworker’s question, I found that it’s actually not that uncommon for one or both parents to feel some sort of disconnect with the baby at first.  Sometimes a bond happens right away, and sometimes it takes a while – but the parenting instinct does kick in eventually, so it’s not anything to add to the worry pile.

With this in mind, I was fully prepared for either outcome when the Sprout was born.  For sure, both my wife and I were more than ready to get past the pregnancy part and start the parenting phase, but I really feel that both of us regarded the moment of birth as a big step into The Great Unknown.

The C-section took all of 20 minutes or so, after hours and hours of being in the hospital – we checked in on Monday night, labor was induced Tuesday morning, we waited all day on Tuesday until, finally, the doctor made the decision to deliver via C-section at 11pm.  It would still be another hour or so before everything, and everyone, was prepped and ready to go.  By the time we headed to the operating room, midnight had passed and we had entered our third day of being in the hospital.

I stayed on one side of the curtain and sat on a stool, with my wife on the table in front of me and the anesthesiologist beside me.  I won’t lie – it was a scary, scary scene, made better only by the fact that we had complete faith and trust in the doctor.  In all, it only took 20 minutes from beginning to end.  When our baby was delivered, the anesthesiologist pressed me to pop my head up to take a look.  After some prodding, I peeked over the curtain and, across the room, I saw our daughter laying on a heating pad, her eyes open wide, her head sweeping the room from side to side, the grayness of her skin slowly being taken over by pink as her first intake of air made its way through her body.  It felt great to see her for the first time, but it was not The Moment.  She was too far away, a small form in a large and empty space. I may have made a remark to my wife that the baby was fine, and looked healthy and strong.

Then, the nurses bundled the Sprout up in a stock hospital blanket, put a little hat on her, and carried her around the curtain to present her to my wife for the first time.  My wife, upon seeing the Sprout for the first time ever, burst into tears, told her that she loved her, and kissed her on the temple.  It was, at that moment, an instant bond for both of us.

This was The Moment, and is the best thing that I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.  It is the gem that I keep in my heart, the one that I call on when the storm clouds gather and the night is dark.  It comforts me and assures me that, no matter what else happens in this world, there will always be promise and hope and good that I can reach out and touch with my own hands.

Dear Georgiana,

You are a little over a month old now! Your Mom and I continue to find out
new things about you, and it’s a delight to watch you grow into your new world.

Before we met you, everyone told us that children “grow up so fast”, and now I understand what that means. Looking at the videos that we took when you were still in the hospital, you were so small – today, you already look different. Your face is fuller, and you’ve definitely gained a healthy amount of weight. You’ve also lost some hair, which is puzzling, but we have been assured that it will grow back. I still feel like I’m not taking enough pictures.

You will never be this small again.

I see such a curiosity in your face, and it is a joy to behold. You want
to look around so badly, and your body and muscles have yet to catch up
with your intents. But these days are short, and your wish is right around
the corner – you’ve almost mastered holding your own head up, which is
something the rest of us take for granted until we see you fussing in
frustration that you cannot. Wait till you start walking – it’s quite a blast.

In the universe of newborns, you’ve taken it pretty easy on us so far. You
now sleep at night up to 5 hours at a time, meaning we only need to get up
to feed and change you once. We’ve even taken you out a few times, although you won’t remember a thing about them, and you did just fine out
in the world.

I can’t believe that, in just a few months, you’ll be crawling. Right now,
we kind of take it as a given that you will stay put wherever we set you
down. That’ll change soon enough.

Love,

Your Dad

You can pretty much predict what happened next. As we accelerated onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, around the halfway point of our trip, we realized that the diaper bag was still sitting on the kitchen table.

Lesson Number One: A well packed diaper bag is essential, but even more
critical is remembering to take it with you.

We ended up stopping at a supermarket and creating an ad hoc setup consisting of a plastic grocery bag full of purchased formula, bottles, and diapers. Everything that we needed, or so we thought.

Lesson Number Two is actually a corollary to Lesson Number One. After
lunch, we decided that it would be a good idea to put the Sprout into a
fresh diaper before hitting the road. Bear in mind that we were using a
brand of diapers other than that which we had grown accustomed – so it was
a shock and surprise when we discovered that the Sprout’s newly purchased diaper had leaked all over the ONE outfit that we had with us. And since we were in Bucks County, where townhomes typically cost over a million dollars, the nearest children’s clothing shop was very happy and willing to sell us a onesie, for $35.

Lesson Number Two: Pack a change of clothing. In fact, pack a couple of
changes.

Other than these two things, we haven’t had many other hiccups. Things are
going well, and we are very fortunate that the Sprout is not fussy, other
than those times when she needs feeding, a diaper change, or that
once-a-day early evening discontent that lasts for about a half hour.
Given the stories I’ve heard, I’m thankful for what we have.

October 16, 2009

Dear Georgiana,

As I write this, you are now a little over a week old, and have been living with us at home since Saturday afternoon.  When you were first born, you weighed 5lb 3oz, and at the time that you were released from the hospital, you had lost 2oz and weighed 5lb 1oz, or a tiny smidge more than a bag of sugar.  Even in this short time together, we’ve grown to know so much more about you.

Looking back at the pictures from your first day in this world, I can already see you growing, and it is only now that I understand when people tell me that kids grow up too fast.  You are only going to be this small once, and not for very long – no matter how many pictures I take, I still never think they’re enough.  When you had your first doctor’s visit on Wednesday, she said that everything about you was just fine, and you actually gained weight.  As your mother likes to say, you gained a cheeseburger – which is to say you put on 1/4 lb since leaving the hospital.

We’re growing accustomed to the person that is you.  You get the hiccups, like a lot.  You don’t seem to mind them, and for us it’s quite entertaining.  You also sneeze quite a bit, which we are told is completely normal, and right now your skin is very flaky, which we are also told is normal.  We have a dozen pacifiers, but your favorite ones are the ones from the hospital.

Speaking of which, none of the clothing that we have for you fits because you are a bag of sugar.  When you wear sleeves, your fists end where the elbows would normally go.  You disappear in most every outfit.

I know that you wouldn’t know this, but for a baby, you are remarkably unfussy.  You cry when you are hungry, or when you need a fresh diaper, but other than that, you are a quiet one who sleeps much of the day.  You wake up once or twice during the night for feeding and changing, but so far you’ve demonstrated none of the stereotypical traits that make everyone tell us that we won’t get any sleep.  I love that you love your mother on such a deep level, and nothing makes me happier than to see you snuggled up on your mom’s chest, asleep.

D

The Sprout is a joy to behold, and surprisingly unfussy.  She slept most of the day away, waking only to be fed and changed.  It was with an equal sense of dread and anticipation that bedtime came, and we faced our first night with a newborn in the house.

The first few hours were predictably chaotic.  She started crying and would not stop, except for a few brief moments that only served to provide us with a false sense of relief.  My wife held her and walked around the room for a bit, then I did the same to no avail.  The Sprout’s grandmother took over from there, and at that point, with the baby’s crying muffled by virtue of being at the other end of the house, I fell asleep.  Having heard all of the “lack of sleep” stories from parents who are older and wiser than we are, none of this was a surprise to us.

Because the Sprout is small, and because the C-section required that my wife take pain meds on a regular schedule, I had set the alarm to go off in the middle of the night.  When that time came, I reached across the bed to find emptiness where my wife should have been, and in my sleepy stupor it barely registered with me that I didn’t hear the baby crying.  I fell back asleep.

Four hours later, I woke up again to find that nothing had changed.  My wife had not come back to bed, and the baby was not in the Pack-n-Play that we had set up in the bedroom.  Out of a growing sense of concern, I looked in the nursery, which was empty.  I went downstairs.

My wife was lying on the couch, with the Sprout safely snuggled on her chest, asleep.  She told me that, after the baby would not settle, she came downstairs with her so as not to disturb the rest of the house, placed the baby on her chest, and soon after discovered that the kid had fallen fast asleep, with the soothing sound of her mother’s heartbeat in her ear.

As I write this, we’ve just crossed the third night with the baby, and everything is going smoothly.  My wife sets the Sprout on her chest until she falls asleep, then eases her into a small travel bassinet by her side of the bed.  At some point during the night, either the baby will stir awake, or my wife will wake her for feeding and a diaper change.  Other than that, everyone has experienced smooth sailing straight on until morning.

We remain cautiously optimistic.

Dear Georgiana,

You were born this morning.  As I write this, you’re coming up on the end of your very first complete day of your entire lifetime.  I do hope that you’re enjoying it so far – it gets more interesting, I promise.  Life is more than hospital rooms and tests and poking and prodding.  There are kites, for example, and bird feeders, and model rockets, and computers that fit in the palm of your hand.  I’ll explain each of these to you as you get older.  Then, as I get older, I expect you to explain them to me.

If anyone had asked me just a few days ago, I would have very likely told them that you would have been born yesterday, but your birth had its own schedule to keep.  Your mom and I checked into the hospital on Monday night, with the complete expectation that you would be born sometime on Tuesday.  By 11pm on Tuesday, when it looked like you would never arrive by yourself, the doctor decided that a C-section would be the best way to go.  And, at 12:23am this morning, you were born.

In the weeks leading up to today, your mom and I had tried very hard to picture what you would look like, and we weren’t very good at doing that.  We had fuzzy images of you before you were born, and they were really only good for figuring out how big you were.  We met you for the first time when the nurse brought you to us in the operating room – you’re smaller than we expected, but bigger than we had ever hoped.  Does that make sense?

Even though the both of us were exhausted from being in the hospital for so long, seeing you was like the dawn of a new day.  I remember the first breath you took, and the first time I heard you cry.  I remember the look on your mom’s face when she saw you for the very first time.  I remember walking with you as the nurse wheeled you down the dark and empty hospital corridors back to our room.

Since you were born this morning, so much has happened that I’ve only managed to sleep for three hours.  I’m at home for tonight, which you will see for yourself very soon, and within the next few minutes I will be asleep.  Knowing that you’ve arrived safely, though, is going to give me the best rest I’ve had in a very long time.  I want you to know that you were so very much worth the wait.

D

Georgiana, 5lb 3oz, born October 7, 2009 at 12:23am

The registration process went very smoothly.  In fact, everything about tonight has gone more smoothly than I could have ever anticipated.  We had a light dinner about a half mile up the road from the hospital, parked the car in the deck, and strolled into the maternity ward at precisely the time we were told to arrive.

After checking in, we were shown to our room, a very large private room at the end of the hall, with its own private bathroom and shower, a nursing rocker, and this foldout chair/bed contraption that I’m now sitting on, tapping away at my keyboard.  The whole experience has had the air of checking into a hotel more than a hospital.

They’ve started the Cervidil tonight, and at some point tomorrow morning, they’ll induce labor.  For now, I’m going to settle into this stiff, but oddly comfortable, foldout chair and try to get some sleep.