Raising Lulu - a dad-to-be's inept guide to fatherhood

Hello world, I am Aurelia.

2011-12-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

Aurelia June Schneider joined us all on Nov. 2 at 11:44 p.m. Tomorrow she will officially be one month old. Happy one-month birthday, baby!

They say a baby’s brain develops and learns more in the first month than it does at any other time in its life. I believe it, but a close second has to be the first month you have your own baby. She has already taught me more about life, love and patience than I could have imagined. In learning this, I realized that I have to start this post by thanking my own mother and late father for everything they went through to give me life. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.

What’s in a name?

I thought an appropriate first post-birth blog entry would be to talk about the name we chose and why we chose it. Aurelia June Schneider.

Having my own unique name story, I am no newbie when it comes to discussions about symbolism, pronunciation, and spelling. Also, coming from a family who’s generation includes atypical names like Jasper, McLain, Liberty and others, I think each name a person is given gives them some sort of strength and foundation on who the eventually become as an adult.

So who, or what is Aurelia? Aurelia is a female name which in Latin means “golden.” I have been asked a lot about the pronunciation of Aurelia. Her name is pronounced as “ah-RAYL-ya”. I have also included two oral pronunciations as MP3s if you would care to listen -Aurelia(1) Aurelia(2).

Who is Aurelia?

I have been told many times already that this is a unique name we chose. As it was my first choice in names, I tend to see that positively, but did you know that our baby girl is not the first Aurelia Schneider? There was an Aurelia Schneider born in 1900 in Texas. In fact, there are currently 10 other Aurelia Schneider’s around the world listed on Facebook, go figure?

The family name Aurelia was one of the most distinguished in ancient Rome having claimed 23 Consuls, the highest elected office in ancient Rome. The most famous of women in this family belonged to Aurelia Cotta. With a grandfather, father and three brothers all being elected Consul, she clearly came from a remarkable family. But even with such a distinguished family, she is most famously known as the mother of Julius Caesar. Of course the Julian family has its own countless number of Consuls and later Emperors of which we are more familiar.

There is also a St. Aurelia, Aurelia of Strasbourg. A tenth-century Roman Catholic saint, she was a princess, member of the royal family of Hugh Capet, who became a hermitess to escape marriage.

The name Aurelia was used in one of Shelli and my favorite movies, Love Actually.

The name Aurelia has also been used in many other places, and as I introduce her to more people I keep finding new connections and places I was unaware existed.

The VIA Aurelia is a famous roadway in Italy which connects Rome to Pisa. This roadway was first constructed in 241 B.C. and still exists today!

The Lancia Aurelia is a classic Italian roaster produced after WWII and I am sure would make a great sweet 16 present for Lulu. Yea right!

Closer to home, the USS Aurelia was an attack cargo ship during WWII and took part in many missions during the war on the Pacific.

Closer yet, there is an Aurelia, IA just six hours from Fargo. The town was named after the daughter of the railroad builder.

At home, Aurelia is the sweetest baby I have ever met. Despite the lack of sleep and constant demands she makes, we couldn’t be luckier. My hope is that someday in the distant future she makes someone else’s blog talking about why they named their daughter Aurelia. That would make me a proud papa.

Who is June?

Shelli was born in June and so, in a way, Aurelia was named after her mother. We also use June Bug as a nickname for her.

June also happens to be a special month in the Schneider family as it is the birth month of my brother, my father and several other special family members in my life.

Yes, you can still call her Lulu. I am sure these are just the first of many nicknames she will get from the creativity of many cousins, uncles, and great uncles!

Thank You!

I have been wanting to do a post just thanking everyone for all the love, caring, and generosity that has been shared with us over the last month. I am just not sure I could write an entry with enough emotion and length to fully show our appreciation to everyone. So I will be short and just say thank you for welcoming our little Aurelia into the world with such sincere compassion and enthusiasm.

Baby Brinkmanship

2011-11-02T12:38:00.001-07:00

The term brinkmanship has come up many times throughout my studies, never did it occur to me that it could be used by against me so early in my parenthood. According to wikipedia, brinkmanship is the practice of pushing dangerous events to the verge of disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome. One of the examples they cite where it is commonly used in is during labor relations... now is that a pun or a double entendre?

While Shelli and I continue to wait in what I have begun to call "Day 2 of labor relations", I have been trying to figure out what is needed in order to convince baby that now is a good time. What in the world could she be holding out for? Since this is her first debate with mom and dad, I am sure she just wants to make a good show of it. I am not sure what else we can give, though I think everyday she waits I seem to love her a little bit more. Maybe that is her plan?

Waiting for Lulu

We have been trying to keep ourselves busy while we wait. Shelli has been great at taking doctors orders and trying to do as much walking as possible. We sort of figured that the advice they give women when they don't want to go into labor is bed rest, so we have been trying to do the opposite. Lots of last minute cleaning and projects while we try to stay active and keep our minds on other topics.

It was great having so many family and friends in town last weekend to help us get through the last anxiety-filled days. Grant and Gabby had their baptism, and god parents Jared and Marni, Mac and Crystal were in town. I can't wait for the future. I am looking forward to the day when all of our kids get to meet and hang out together. Growing up with your cousins and other extended family so close was a blessing to me and I hope Lulu will be as fortunate. Having lifelong best friends from birth, it doesn't get much better than that.

I will end this with the hopes this is the last blog post before Lulu comes. Stay tuned for pictures and more information from our time at the hospital. I will now leave you with a quote from a baptismal speech in Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Turning up the heat!

2011-10-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

Lulu is only two weeks away - which of course means she could be here any day!

The good news is that our house is starting to look like a baby lives there. I am already tripping over a number of smaller-than-normal sized items. For instance, we seem to have accumulated a number of different sitting places for the baby; wooden high chair, attachable high chair, rocking chair, bouncer, sleeper, rocker, etc. I am sure she will be grateful for all the options we have.

It is comforting to know that the house is pretty much in order and that we could get by pretending we are ready if the baby does come. Until then though, I like to pretend that our house is part of the underground railroad for oompa-loompas. How cool would that be? Besides being able to house and dress them, the goodies they make would come in handy right now with the lady in charge.

The only area we are lacking, in my opinion – Shelli has a much longer list spread across several pieces of paper, is that we have yet to turn on the heat. In our vain effort to deny the end of summer, we have yet to check if our furnace is working. I thought that today, with a high of 49 and a low below freezing, it might be a good idea to see if the old steamer is working. I know the baby will appreciate that.

Jealous of mamma

Shelli has been amazing throughout the whole pregnancy. She is always smiling and just happy to meet our little Lulu. Every time I see her face light up as the baby kicks I can’t help but feel a little jealous. Don’t get me wrong, I could never handle it. I would demand to be waited on hand and foot. But because I know that is impossible, I can continue to be jealous of the connection between mom and baby. I am thankful that the connection is there, but sometimes I feel left out.

It is because of this jealousy that I came up with a plan. For years, Shelli has been the keeper of the alarm clock. The last couple of months though, I have set my phone alarm to go off 30 minutes before her alarm goes off. Today Shelli finally asked, “why do you keep setting that when you know I am too?” My response was simple, “because, this is my favorite time of the day.”

This is my 30 minutes with Lulu. Sometimes it is before Shelli wakes up, and sometimes she has been up off and on all night. Either way, this is my daddy time. Talking to the belly is heavily advised, but it is also always silly. I try to do it though. My habit in the morning is to check my phone, read emails, look at calendar, etc. So often times I do that and then I tell Lulu all about my day ahead. Other times I just cozy up and fall back asleep next to her with my hand on the belly. I have found she makes a pretty good furnace substitute J

I can’t wait much longer!

#3 Babies, babies everywhere!

2011-08-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling you get when you buy a new car and all of a sudden you start seeing that car driving all over the place? Well I am starting to wonder, have there really always been babies around every corner and I just didn’t see them? It seems like babies are everywhere these days.

On a side note, I am really starting to feel bad for the kid in Sixth Sense. Just imagine starting to see dead people and then they start showing up everywhere. Yikes!

It’s been a thrilling time in our lives and the lives of our friends and family. I just wanted to start this post by welcoming a new friend into the world - baby Landon. With Landon, in addition to Lulu’s new cousins, Grant and Gabby; and our other baby friends Drake and Kaylee, it is clear that Lulu will have some fun little ones around to grow up with. We couldn’t be more thankful for them all.

I’ve got a golden ticket!

In addition to always having an excuse to go out to eat, having a wife that is pregnant is sort of like having an exclusive ticket to a party where only other parents can attend. It’s like the first time you get that letter in the mail letting you know you are prequalified for a credit card. All of a sudden I am prequalified to talk about and be included in any number of different topics regarding children. Like that first credit card notification being slid into the mail box, I thought I was pretty lucky.

I quickly learned there are a number of realities of parenthood that don’t necessarily make for great dinnertime conversation. In fact, they probably don’t make very good blog conversations either. To make my point maybe I should briefly list the keywords involved in each conversation: placenta, breast pump, feces color, and vernix caseosa (which is not a spell in Harry Potter). I could go on, but what other party would you want to attend where these are the topics of conversation?

Seriously though, it has been a lot of fun. There are so many interesting new things to learn and fake being an expert at. Some I cannot wait for and others terrify me. Like in one book there was a chapter on baby proofing, have any of you read that? It’s ok if you haven’t; there is a new TV show about the same thing. It’s called “1001 ways to die.”

Organize storage for hair accessories

My wife loves lists. I think it is a secret excuse to use as many tiny bits of paper lying around as possible. Which now that I come to think of it, choking hazard! She has a list for everything. Do not get me wrong, I love it. If she didn’t have a list to keep us on track we’d be in a lot of trouble. Me most of all!

With that said, there are a lot of things on the lists now that I never thought I would have to do. The list she showed me yesterday had “organize baby storage for hair accessories.” I think I need to make a to do list called Rocky’s never thought he’d have to do list - from death proofing to barrette sorting. FYI, I had to look up how to spell barrette… so it begins.

Chinese calendar

We had an ominous warning the other day. We were having some Pho at Jade Dragon (waiting for my ad money from them) and we came across the Chinese calendar. “Oh I wonder what Lulu is going to be,” we said with all the joy of soon to be parents. Our little girl will be born in the year of the Rabbit. How perfect, she will be keen, wise, considerate, fashionable, and kind. All great stuff right? We should’ve stopped reading. The last part simply said, beware the rooster. Wait, Shelli and I are roosters. Under rooster it says, rabbits are trouble. I think we might have a feisty one on our hands!

#2 Family

2011-08-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

I can’t wait to spend time with my little Lulu. I know there will be a lot of challenges, some I am sure I can’t even fathom. There is one though that I am anticipating and am working up the courage to deal with. Please bear with me as I try to overcome my shortcomings.

Sharing

I realized shortly after getting married that nothing is really “mine” anymore. This will become even more apparent after Lulu is born. I think I am ok with that. Thankfully, Shelli has given me years of practice sharing things that are precious to me, like my computer, Diet Dew, and my dinner plate. The one thing I think I am going to have trouble sharing though is Lulu herself.

Lulu will be lucky in many ways. Some she will have to grow to appreciate, but the first and most apparent luck will be the amount of family that loves her, comes to visit her and will want to hold her. On Shelli’s side of the family, Lulu will not only be the first grandchild, but also the first great-grandchild. She will also have two pretty great guys as uncles. And I would be remiss to talk about family if I didn’t mention that Lulu’s family will be expanding greatly just two weeks after she arrives due to a wedding! She will have an “official” Aunt Lisa and the two cutest cousins and future babysitters in Madeline and Lauren.

On my side of the family, she will instantly have four cousins and future best friends in Grant and Gabby, who are just months older. I can’t wait to get to watch them all grow up together. She will also be unable to escape the loving, spoiling barrage of the whole Schneider clan. This was in full display last weekend when “the Aunts” hosted a baby shower for Shelli (and Lulu). With pink decorative details in full force, Donna, Marcie and Mary Joe once again outdid themselves. It was clear from all the pink and monkey themed goodies Shelli brought home that our Lulu is already loved.

This brings me back to sharing. Even though I may not always be the most willing papa to give up his daughter to others, it is pretty clear that she will be in good hands regardless of who is holding her.

Monkeys

I now feel the need to explain why our daughter has been inundated with monkey gifts. This is all my fault. I have a somewhat unhealthy propensity towards monkeys. Seriously though, who doesn’t love monkeys? What is not to love? Those dog and cat owners out there, haven’t you always wondered what it would be like if your pets were just a little bit more human-like? Tada! Monkeys!

Don’t get it yet? Google image search monkeys… go ahead I’ll wait… Ok, now didn’t your day get a little bit better?

Raising Lulu

2011-08-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Lulu isn’t the name of my baby. Like most parents, we are still in debate mode over what to name our baby girl. So since she is currently nameless, I have to call her something. Meet baby Lulu.

With an expected due date of Oct. 31, 2011, my wife and I are planning to have a baby in our lives exactly three months from today. Lulu will be our first child, and we are both very excited.

I have to digress for a moment. I went with “very excited” to describe how we are feeling and immediately regretted writing it. I stared at these words for awhile and thought, how does one describe how it feels bringing a new life into this world? I thought longer and realized - I have no idea, I have never done it. I am sticking with “very excited” for now. I am sure some more brilliant adjectives will pop out later that better express out joy. I will keep you updated.

Daddy Blogging

I have tried a couple blogs in the past and sort of lost interest in the topic, or at best it was an inconsistent interest. I don’t think I really get that option with a newborn, so I am hoping this blog can provide some personal insight into my own parenting and can also be an outlet for my creativity.

The toughest part about blogging for me is that there is no interaction, probably because there are no readers. Maybe this lack of adult human interaction is something I should get used to. Anyway, I hope that you proud few readers will enjoy this blog and my experience or, at the very least, will enjoy some insight into Lulu that you might not find elsewhere.

Five things I know about being a dad

You can learn from fictional role models – Growing up in the generation that relied on TV for many of life lessons, I have learned a few things from the TV dads in my life. Here is a short list of bits of wisdom I have been able to gleam

Homer Simpson – Not your stereotypical role model. He did show us that no matter how much you mess up you still have a 1 in 3 shot of raising a brilliant child. The jury is still out on Maggie since she never got older.
Dr. Huxtable – Bill Cosby, as opposed to Homer, was the stereotypical role model dad. The most impressive thing to me was how he was able to be a doctor and his wife a lawyer and yet he always made sure there was time for each kid when they needed it.
Phillip Banks – The Fresh Prince of Bell Air helped show me the importance of extended family. Growing up with a very close extended family myself, it was reassuring to see that these things were totally normal.

Hold the baby like a football - I have always had this fear that the baby would wiggle and slip from my grip. I was once told by someone that “babies are slippery, so hold on tight.” I am not sure I remember the context of this phrase, but it has stuck with me. I just need to figure out which side of the baby has the laces.
It’s ok to lose – I play games to win. It’s not that I don’t like losing. I actually enjoy losing because it means I was beat. I imagine it will take a few years before Lulu beats me at something, but I think it’s important to lose to her every once in awhile to build her confidence.
When unsure, improvise – Lulu may very well end up being smarter than I am, but I have years of experience on her. More simply, she doesn’t know any better. Really, this is sort of like a free pass for parents. If we mess up, Lulu won’t know the difference – just go with it.
I had the best dad in the world – I loved my dad. He was my best friend. Whatever he did raising Jasper and me, he did right. The way I see it is that if I I have half the natural parenting talent he did, I will be ok. Thanks dad!