wife.house.dog.kid

Food

2013-04-04T20:11:00.001-07:00

Choosing what to feed your toddler is SO important. When I am deciding what Otto will eat I ask the following very important questions:

1. Can it be picked up off the floor easily?

2. Will the dog eat it?

3. If the dog won't eat it, would I eat it after it touches the floor?

4. Is my computer out of Otto's throwing distance?

If the answer to any of these is yes, it's probably a green light.

A Case For the One Year Old Birthday Party

2012-09-24T21:50:00.002-07:00

Jeff, you're still doing this thing? Yes, apparently.

A few days ago, my little baby, Otto, the very reason I started writing these posts, turned one year old. It's still hard for me to believe. It really didn't feel like a whole year.

But it's not hard to believe that Otto is a year old when you look back at how much he has changed. Otto seems older every day. In fact, if you think about all of the thing's he has accomplished it's harder to believe that he's only been around for 12 months. Interestingly, his dad seems to have aged a lot more than a year since September 2011, as well.

Change seems to be the theme of parenthood. Occasionally it's dramatic, but more often it's just kind of a drift. It's a trend towards something that is always different then the day before, yet so gradual that you can never really pin point the exact instant of metamorphosis. The food is always getting a little more solid, the naps are always getting a little bit shorter, and the childproofing of the house is always a little less than it should be.

But it's not just the kid that changes. I see it in me. I see it in all my friends who have kids. We're getting more conservative. We talk more about yard work, or how much our joints hurt. We are caring more about things we never thought we would.

For example, I used to think the 1st year birthday party was quintessential example of western wastefulness. If only I had a time machine to invite younger Jeff to Otto's party.

My wife and I started talking about his party a month or two ago. As soon as it came up I knew something inside me had changed. I didn't hate the idea and I couldn't really sort out why.

Trisha wanted a theme. I suggested a dog theme. If you've read any of my previous posts you probably know we are dog people. We already had dog "stuff" around the house. My thought process was we would call that stuff decorations and that would be it. No big deal.

My wife delegated me to making invitations.

"Hmmm...invitations?" I thought, "Like for you, me, our parents...I could probably just call them."

My wife insisted that we have invitations for all of Otto's 'friends.'

"You mean Ralph?" I wisely kept to myself.

I agreed, since I'm sort of a hobby artist. In fact, looking back this may have been very strategic of my wife. Trisha knows I love to design stuff for print and I always go way overboard. To use a dated reference, I am the Tim Taylor of hobby graphic design. Trisha knew that, if for no other reason than to try and create the penultimate invitation, I would be on board for this party.

She was right, but it worked on a whole other level. To make this invitation I needed photos. From new born to 10 months old, I sat and looked at almost every photo/video we have of this little, pudgy, wonderful boy. I cried a lot (I'm sort of an emotional guy).

I relived him coming home from the hospital, his first laugh, when he learned to clap, his first Christmas, him sleeping on my chest while I studied, his first time at the family cabin, his first cold, his first time swimming in a pool, etc. This invitation (and by association, this party) became the culmination of the most wonderful, exhausting, impossible year of my life and a symbol of what this little human being meant to me, regardless of his understanding of it. It was and is completely irrational, but in that moment of photo induced nirvana I understood the stream of consciousness of every party mama. Sentimentality overcame any rational thought. I was in party mode...and I loved it.

I designed four different invitations. Then I went on to bunting banners with a different breed of dog on each flag. It was easy, I just googled each breed, clipped each dogs face, converted it to one-bit black and white, then imported them into a tracing program so I could reformat them into vectors, then exported them to a drawing program so I could edit the fine details, then printed them at staples on four different colours of card stock. Then it was as simple as cutting out each flag and attaching them to twine. Easy. The whole process realistically took me 15 hours.

That wasn't enough! I scoured iTunes for children's music that was actually enjoyable to listen to and burned CD's for all our guests. I designed labels for gift bags. I printed off a "Pin-the-Tail on the Ralphie" game. I caught myself before I had T-shirts printed.

My wife was simultaneously going even more crazy, sewing amazing cloth bunting, baking cookies and pretzel bones and Jell-o filled dog bowls and puppy chow and making all sorts of amazing decorations. It actually became a huge bonding point for us. It was our project. And we made a pretty amazing team. Maybe there's a market for planning one year old's canine-esque get-togethers?

The day of the party I actually had an overwhelming sense of embarrassment. I was seriously afraid of what our friends would think of our dog-themed party gone dog-themed circus. They were gracious. And there-in is the final perk of the first year birthday party. We saw friends. We had people in our house that we have neglected for the last year. We got to see their kids. It was really fun. I kind of wish we could do first year parties more often.

You're probably reading this and rolling your eyes. And that's ok, because I completely understand. But this party ended up being really, really great. I'm proud of my amazing son. I'm proud of my amazing family. I'm proud of what we accomplished in our first year as a family.

The Aftermath

2012-07-11T17:11:00.001-07:00

I have a secret. You know those sunglasses that you mostly see on women in their 70s that are designed to fit over normal glasses? The ones that have polarized tinted side panels? The ones that look comically huge overtop of bifocals with pearl neck chains?

Those are the only sunglasses that fit on my face. And no, I don't mean over my regular glasses. I mean if I'm wearing contacts and need to put on sunglasses like any other normal person, those granny specs are the only ones I can manage to squeeze on my cranium. So now you know a little more about the plight of having a ~~huge~~ massive head.

I mention this because I was wearing them when I started this post. I was sitting in a beautiful screened in patio looking at the Gulf of Mexico. Trisha, Otto, and I were there to celebrate. We have made it. I finished my exams and I passed. Twenty-five years after starting kindergarten I am finally done school.

So what is a Royal College exam, you might be wondering. (Because it's over I can actually explain a little better without breaking into tears.) It's two parts. Part one is a written exam that is done in a total of six hours over two days. All the questions are short answer and mostly consist of making lists. For example:

1) List 14 things that make your toes turn red.
2) List 37 things you can do to treat morning hiccups.
3) List one thing more annoying than this exam (trick question).

The second part is the oral exam. For this you fly all the way to Ottawa. There are a list of recommended hotels given to you by the Royal College. These include the Fairmont, the Hilton, etc. But me and the other Manitoban residents decided to go Winnipeg style. We went for something a little more...thrifty.

The Parliament Hill Hotel and Suites. Every employee appears to be 15 years old, or 75 years old. When we got off on our shared floor we discovered a very strong smell. Imagine finding runners that were dirty and then put in a box. And then buried. For 4 years. We wondered how that smell could be spread through the entire floor. But we quickly learned it was focused in one spot. My room.

The oral exam is not technically that hard. At the same time, it's super hard. It's like eating breakfast. Eating breakfast is not hard at all. But imagine eating breakfast in a suit that is worth more than your car. Then imagine you're being watched by 4 people who have dedicated their lives to eating breakfast, and if they see you eat the fruit loops before the pop-tart, well then you'll never be allowed to eat breakfast again.

Because not every person can be examined at the same time, there is a process in which different people are sequestered for 1-2 hours at a time to ensure there is no cheating. My group had the four prototypical pre-exam losers.

1) The Over-Talker: "Can-you-believe-we're-going-through-this-at-the-same-time-as-Grey's-Anatomy-I-watched-it-last-night-and-it-was-so-good-but-so-scary-HAHAHAHAHA-I-can't-wait-to-be-done-can-you-what-are-you-going-to-do-I'm-going-to-drink-HAHAHAHA-right?"

2) The Bobber: They don't talk much. They bob up and down in their chair. They occasionally make some sort of guttural sounds under their breath. And they sweat.

3) The Over-Analyzer: They are still reeling over the answer they put on the third page of the second booklet of the written exam three weeks ago. To take their mind off of it, they review flash cards.

4) The Blank Stare.

I won't tell you which one I was.

When it was finally my turn to take the exam, the volunteer judicator had a surprisingly difficult time pronouncing my name.

"Dr. Clay-..." furrowed brow, "Dr. Kleese...," Raised eyebrow, "Dr. Class..."

This was a bad start. I rescued her. "Klassen?"

"Yes, Klassen, proceed to door one."

The oral exams are held in the dormitory of a French Community College. Most people are pretty surprised by that. There is a long hallway with numbers posted above the doors on either side. It was pretty easy to find number one.

The door opened to a small foyer that had two more doors, one clearly marked with a "Do Not Enter" sign. I was expecting this. I had heard horror stories about this part of the exam. Numerous stories of fainting, vomiting. There's even a story of a candidate being found 30 minutes after the exam started in the "Do Not Enter" room completely spaced. I walked up to the right door and firmly planted my feet. I concentrated on my breathing. I did not want to become an anecdote. Then a voice came from behind me, "You have to stay in the hallway until the buzzer!" At least I was still conscious.

Most of the actual oral exam is a blur. There was an hour of exam time in the morning and the afternoon. For one hour before and after I was sequestered. As soon as I was finished I jumped in a cab, went back to my hotel, took off all my clothes, ate chocolate and blueberries and watched Storage Wars for 2 and a half straight hours. I forgot at least 47% of everything I had been studying for the last year. It was great.

Now I just have to start working for real (gulp). But that a story for another day.

Slowly I have become my normal self again. Otto recognizes me again. He's almost 10 months old! He claps and babbles. He has two teeth. I'm so ecstatic to be spending more time with him. Check him out. He's the greatest.

How to Get Old in 6 Months

2012-03-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

Otto turned 6 months yesterday. It's pretty unbelievable that he is 6 months old already. He's developing all sorts of new sounds and learning how to use his arms and hands more. Of course, one of the new sounds he's learned is screaming and he's learned how to use his arms to flail. It's okay. I still love him.

It's also pretty amazing how much kids can change in 6 months (cliché alert!). It's true, though. He's got a personality now. He has a voice. He has very clear likes and dislikes. He's got habits and quirks. He's also over 20 pounds now. He's twice the size he was 6 months ago (but then again, so am I).

The thing I find a lot of parents don't talk about is how much THEY change. When Otto was born, I had freshly turned 30. I made the transition pretty smoothly, I think. I felt young. I was in the best shape I had been in in years. I was eating well and taking better care of myself than I ever had. But 6 months can change everything.

Now, I'm old. As the main character in Motherless Brooklyn puts it, I'm not fat, not muscular, just "bear like." I am chronically tired and as a result I eat mostly sodium. Sometimes I eat saturated fats with my sodium. There's nothing better than deep fried sodium. I lose my breath going up a flight of stairs at the library. I also am so coffee dependant I'm almost to the point of waking myself at night for a coffee so I don't wake up with a headache in the morning.

This concept of rapid aging first came to me while we were in Hawaii. This was the first time I didn't surf while I was there. It was a little sad, because I love to surf, but sometimes things just don't work out. I was already in a cycle of bad eating and pretty severe coffee dependance by that time. I started boogie boarding while I was there and I used my boogie boarding to convince myself I'm not that old. And that worked, for a while. As long as I was boogie boarding, I was fine. Then it donned on me. My boogie boarding partner was my father-in-law. Actually, he did more boogie boarding than I did. The day I reached my epiphany we had happened to run into one of my uncles who was also boogie boarding with us. That day, I was the only person boogie boarding on our beach under 50 (of about 6 or so people). Well, that's not entirely true. There was an 8 year old that I was trying very hard to keep up with.

My self observation of getting older continued after we got home. I think I've found a pretty reliable measurement tool for evaluating if you're old or not. It's based on what you are embarrassed to buy at the pharmacy. When you're really young it's junk food, and if you're not that bright, maybe cigarettes. When your young and in your prime, it's things like condoms and feminine hygiene products. Then one day, you're hiding Propecia pills and Senekot under your arm as you pull your hat low and walk out the automatic doors.

My scenario is a little different than most parents, though. My rapid aging process has much less to do with Otto, and much more to do with studying. (Since my last post, by the way, I finished reading Rosen's. Ever finished a book and realized you don't really remember how it started?). In fact, Trisha pretty much does 95% of the parenting so I can get all my reading done (so if she asks, I was reviewing flash cards while I was typing this blog, okay?).

Trisha has been amazing through all of this. She's been put through a lot while I've been studying. She essentially has become the single mother of three problem children. The cute one that doesn't sleep and has just learned how to have temper tantrums, the ugly and jealous one that insists on constant attention in the form of "fetch" (that's Ralph by the way), and the hulking, absent minded man-child that is currently completely unable to look after himself. The third one can recite the diagnostic criteria for endocarditis verbatim, but can't remember to buy milk on the way home.

So if you read this blog and you know us, please remember my poor wife sometime. I have a little over a month and a half until I'm done this exam completely. At that time I can (hopefully) be a normal, adult parent/spouse. In the mean time, my wife needs support. Coffee date. Phone call. Text message. Thanks.

Ralph. Upside down.

Return of the Blog, Escape from Rosen's

2012-02-29T23:21:00.002-08:00

You probably didn't notice, but I haven't written anything in a very long time. I haven't been around. I've been...lost. Lost inside a very big book. The book looks like this:

Rosen's Emergency Medicine. 203 chapters in this edition. About 3000 pages. I've read 180 chapters, and almost 3/4 of all of those chapters I have read after Christmas. The best part...I don't remember any of it.

That's not entirely true. I seem to remember completely useless, never-going-to-use-in-my-career sort of facts. For instance, I can't seem to forget how African Sleeping Sickness presents. Unfortunately, that information is taking up real estate where important information used to live (i.e. what to do if someone's heart stops beating).

For anyone who hasn't heard me complain about it, I've got an exam in May. Most of it is based on this book. I've made about 5000 flashcards so far. Every so often I pick up a flash card from one of the many piles just to see if it sparks any sort of recognition at all. I can usually identify the handwriting as mine...usually.

Trisha and I did actually manage to get away for a few weeks amidst all this studying. We went to Maui...again.

In earlier posts I've commented on how I used to think I was a hipster. In my pseudo-hipster phase, in keeping with delusional hipsterisms, I thought Hawaii was the lamest. So tacky (and not in a cool - thrift store kind of way).

Then I went there. There's a reason that Hawaii is the prototypical North American cliche vacation spot. It's perfect. I'm not even going to go on about all the reasons why, it just is. Go there.

Side note:
I think Hawaii falls into the same category as Volvos, being conservative, and architecture magazines. Eventually, every white, middle class loser likes them.

It also FORCES you to break all your impractical hipster behaviours. For instance, you would be insane to wear skinny jeans in Hawaii. Overpriced retro sneakers don't work on the beach. There are no college radio stations so unless you have satellite radio you have to listen to the oldies station and admit to yourself that popular music can also be good music.

We can't stop going now. This was our fourth trip. We've been to Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island. This time was Maui (again).

We were so excited to go. We went with Trisha's parents (built in babysitters!), we had the perfect location booked, and we got great, cheap flights. Everything was planned perfectly. But Trisha could not relax. For a month leading up to our trip, all she could think about was how terrible Otto was going to be on the plane. It's something I never would have even thought of, but Trisha was so worried about it that she started to get me worried. Trisha is very good at making the theoretical seem extremely inevitable.

"Wait...He's going to cry the whole time?! That's over six hours!"
"Why doesn't he want to eat? He loves to eat!"
"Can he really start teething at 10 000 feet?"

Well, as usual, all the worry was for nothing. Otto slept 5/6 hours from Vancouver to Maui and 5/6.5 hours from Maui back to Calgary. The only trouble he did cause was at a layover in Vancouver.

Otto is still young enough to fly free because he doesn't take a seat. That being said, most airlines will shuffle seats around to make an extra seat between parents with a baby if there are empty seats on the plane. If it's really obvious that there will be empty seats, they'll even let you bring a car seat on and buckle it in. On our flight from Vancouver to Maui there were almost 30 empty seats.

As soon as there was an agent at the gate in Vancouver, Trisha pounced on her to ask about the car seat. When she took Otto's ticket, however, she indicated that he had been flagged and that a security officer would be coming shortly. She was serious. Otto is four months old.

Sure enough, a border guard showed up. And he asked the following question with a straight face:

"Does he have any belongings with him?"
"Did he see his baggage at the baggage identification terminal?"

Then he "patted down" Otto. We actually had to wake Otto up, take him out of his car seat, and with four pats, the guard had effectively covered Otto's entire body.

He then expressed great distress as to how Otto was able to make it all the way to the gate. Apparently this "flag" should have prevented him from getting through several check points before the gate. This didn't seem like a oops-hope-that-doesn't-happen-again sort of thing. It seemed more like an excuse-me-while-I-go-fire-someone sort of thing.

I don't know what Otto did to get such special treatment, but it looks like he got away with it.

There's a lot I could say about Hawaii, but maybe I'll save those for future posts. After all, I don't know how many post I could make about reading Rosen's.

Road Trips

2012-01-05T16:07:00.000-08:00

I love road trips, even when it is in less than ideal circumstances.

When I was a tree planter I once drove from Prince George to Winnipeg in one sitting. My co-traveler was supposed to take over in Edmonton but she started puking around Jasper so I volunteered to captain the whole trip. I started to get pretty tired by Saskatchewan but the retching really kept me going. She fell asleep before Saskatoon so I had to rely on her bad music and smoking to get me through to the perimeter. To this day Big Wreck and clove cigarettes give me flashbacks, but I still had a good time. (Yes, I smoked a little when I was 18...give me a break).

A few years later I got to tour the North West US with some friends I was in a hardcore/metal band with. It was July. Due to a car breakdown of one of the members of another band, all five of us had to squeeze into a two door Honda Accord with no air conditioning. I should mention, we were all pretty big people. Davis, our drummer, is easily 6 foot 4. When he was in the back seat he would have to put one foot out the driver window, so if you were driving and you went to shoulder check, you would get a face full of calf. I remember being in Mile City one morning and hearing the forecast for the day being 110 degrees Fahrenheit. We all grew up Metric, so we all looked at each other and said, "Is that hot?"

By 10:00am the sweat coming off of each of us had formed one continuous, disgusting film. The windows were open, of course, but the air hitting our faces was hot. We were living on peanut butter sandwiches and someone left the peanut butter in the back window. That afternoon the peanut butter was the consistency of milk. The best way I can illustrate what it felt like is this:

Imagine finishing the most intense track and field day of your high school career. Now instead of a cool shower and a change of clothes at the end of the day, you are instead tied to four large friends who were also at track and field. You are then placed directly between a giant hair drier aimed at your face and a giant magnifying glass that aims the sun at your back.

The weather stayed like that for almost two weeks. It was one of the most fun trips I have ever been on.

Christmas entailed a couple of road trips with Otto. We drove to each of our parents' houses (to Morris and Morden) and then over New Years we went to Minneapolis with Trisha's family. Road trips with a baby and a dog are a whole different challenge.

First, you have to pack everything. Swing. Chair. Clothes. Car Seat. Baby Toys. Play Pen. Presents. Kennel. Dog Bed. Dog Food. Dog Toys. Somehow a giant station wagon that usually seems way too big starts to feel very, very small. Interestingly, instead of cutting back on what you pack for your kid, you start to compromise what you pack for yourself.

"He needs that stuffed dog that sings Ba Ba Blacksheep. I guess one pair of pants should last me about 6 days, right, hon?"
"These diapers take up this whole pocket on my suitcase. What if I just didn't wear underwear a couple of days?"
"If I just crammed my clothes into a garbage bag instead of a suitcase I bet I could fit the formula next to the over packaged-going-to-break-tomorrow toys we got all our nieces and nephews."

The best is when you meticulously pack everything, Tetris style - every nook is utilized with precision. After 45 minutes of arranging and planning you stand back to admire the densely packed mass of luggage. As you do that, you trip over the vibrating chair your son needs if you ever want to put him down on his own for more than 15 seconds. You forgot to pack it.

"Should I just leave it?" you think to yourself. It's one of those questions you know the answer to but you hate the answer so much you still think about it for at least 20 seconds. Then you unload and re-load the car 4 times trying to make it all fit again. Each time it gets a little more disorganized until finally the whole car looks like it was packed by a tornado. A grumpy tornado.

It's also super fun when you get to your destination, and despite all your efforts you realize you forgot something. Especially something vital, like a stroller. As you can imagine, getting around Minneapolis carrying a 12 pound car seat that contains a 17 pound child could be too much even for my amazing physique. In our case, my in-laws came to Minneapolis the day after us and they were able to bring it for us. Of course, the instant this solution presented itself my thought was, "How the * am I going to fit that in the car on the way home?!"
(* = heck, of course. Come on, my mom reads this blog.)

Then after you're packed, you actually have to travel. Traveling on an interstate with a baby is it's own challenge. They start to cry as you pass a sign that says 'Next Rest Area 96 miles.' Then it becomes a real battle of the psyche. It goes something like this:

Just-Wants-to-Get-There self: He's just crying, that won't kill him. It's just an excuse to go faster.
Over-Tired self: If we don't shut him up soon I'm going to drive this thing into the Water Park of America.
Paranoid-Parent self: What if it's an appendicitis?
Delusional self: Maybe I can block it out...we only have 3 more hours of driving.

All in all, though, the traveling was worth it. We had a pretty great Christmas. Otto got a bunch of toys he MIGHT be able to play with before next Christmas. I got some nerdy coffee stuff. Trisha got new boots. Otto became really giggly this Christmas. He's an easy smile now. We got to spend a lot of time with family and, believe it or not, I even got some reading done.

Now I'm going to put up a bunch of really awesome Otto photos I wasn't allowed to put up before because they were presents for his grandmas.

Happy 2012, everyone. By the way, if the world ends this year after I've done all this reading, I'm going to be steamed.

Roger Chartier put it best when he said, "It looks like they both filled their pants."

Otto and his girl friends from church.

Santa Klassen

Artur Neumann with Otto Artur Neumann (Klassen)

Otto and his Mama (he was smiling two seconds before this photo).

Christmas, Contraptions, and Concussions

2011-12-13T06:56:00.000-08:00

The season of family gatherings is upon us again. And I know, I already posted about family gatherings back at Thanksgiving, but we all know Christmas family gatherings are a whole other ball game. Christmas is the big one. And when you have a kid, it's an even bigger deal. You want him to look cute, and to be good and you've got a stack of pictures of him to give to all of your aunts and uncles and cousins and so on...(remember that my extended family is so big we need to rent churches and community halls to get together).

Our Friesen family gathering was up first this year. We met in a church in Winnipeg, which is really nice for us because we usually have to drive at least an hour and a half outside of Winnipeg to see our family. Otto wasn't super happy but he did pretty good. Our cousin, Mel Weins, had brought this slingy-wrappy baby holder thing that wraps around you and your child in such a way that they have no choice but to be still. Once it's on, the parent looks like a python that swallowed a baby whole. Otto loved it.

It's pretty amazing the simple yet ingenious things people have come up with for babies. For instance, it's been cold and flu season around our house (Kindergarten Teacher + Emergency Doctor = Lots of cold and flu experience). Babies have to breathe through their nose, but they aren't smart enough to use kleenex, so when they get stuffed up it's pretty frustrating. So somebody invented something called an aspirator that is essentially a straw that you stick up their nose. You then use it to suck all the mucous out. There's got a built in filter so that your child's snot doesn't get in your own mouth. Genius. Also, a Bumbo. I know it's old news already, but why hasn't this thing been around since the 1800's. It's moulded foam that lets your baby sit up without falling over. How hard was it to come up with that?

Then there was our Klassen gathering. It was pretty nice, so I'm told. I can't remember a lot of it. Let me explain.

It was in a town called Sommerset. The idea was to have a mini curling bonspiel. I didn't want to play. Lets say that sports and me are like oil and firecrackers. But I did. It's curling, after all, what could happen? Well, I threw a rock and on getting up from throwing said rock I promptly slipped backwards and fell square on my head. I then continued to curl, but seemed to forget what town I was in. I went inside to take out my contacts, but kept trying to take out the left one. I still have no idea where the right one is. I found my wife and apparently asked her the same question three or four times. My wife has experience with me and sports and immediately identified I had another concussion. (Yeah...I said another concussion). My wife tells me I was saying over and over again, "but I have to study."

The potential of not being able to study was a very real concern. Concussions are not very conducive to learning. I'm fortunate to have a very faithful and prayerful family who took very good care of me, including my wife who drove all the way home and let me rest in the passenger seat. By the time we reached the perimeter I was able to recite all the reasons I did not need a CT scan. I read a chapter the next day and remembered about as much as I would have expected to pre-concussion. It looks like I will be ok (although I've got a decent goose egg and a sore back, but that's a small price to pay.)

For future sport consideration, though, I intend on wearing safety goggles when I play darts and a helmet when I go swimming.

As for Otto, he's doing OK. Like I said, it's flu season and with all these new people holding and hugging and kissing him it was inevitable that he would catch something. I'm comfortable with him getting sick and I understand that it is an important part of his development. What I don't understand is how you can poop that much and still gain weight. He's making more and more sounds every day and has now figured out how to rock himself in one of his chairs by kicking his legs. He loves it.

So I guess this might be it until after Christmas (realistically). I hope everyone has a really nice holiday. Merry Christmas to you from Jeff, Trisha, Otto and of course, Ralph. I promise all kinds of new Otto pictures after the holiday.

Otto and his new bud, Ben.

Noggins

2011-12-03T21:37:00.001-08:00

December 3, 2011
Ottos acquired skills: Smiling, cooing, eating
Working on: Sleeping

Dad's achievements: 41 chapters read. 161 to go.

Studying for me has become a bit like Otto falling asleep. At first, I will do everything in my power to avoid it. I whine and fuss, I eat to comfort myself, I may even cry a little. As hard as I try to avoid it, though, I know it's inevitable. Eventually my will breaks, and I study.

And just like Otto's sleeping it's been a progressive learning process. At first I could only read an hour or two at a time. Then miraculously I read for four hours straight. Then a few days later, five hours. And pretty soon, it's not that unusual to read 8 or 10 hours at a time (That analogy doesn't quite work, because Otto can't sleep for 8 hours at a time yet).

Otto needs props to sleep. He has his swing and his white noise. For my studying, it's coffee and music. I'm really happy I haven't lost the ability to listen to music while reading. I'm discovering and re-discovering all kinds of great music and it's made me kind of happy about spending most of my day tethered to my computer. Right now I've found that metal and hardcore punk provide the right amount of angst and motivation to get through page-turners like "Peripheral Vascular Disease" and "Fever." As much as I hoped metal would put Otto right to sleep, though, that's not the case (nothing ever works quite as well as it does in sit-coms).

Christmas has seeped into our house, despite all the pre-occupation with studying and parenting. Our tree is up. Otto was awake for a little family decorating time. We've got some new Christmas music circulating this year, which is nice because as much as I love Christmas music I have a pretty low tolerance for only one album over and over again for an entire month.

Unfortunately, Otto's first Nog's Eve came and went pretty uneventfully. What's Nog's Eve, you ask? It's a holiday celebrating the "specialness" of Egg Nog. In order to protect Egg Nog's "specialness" you should only drink it for one month a year (i.e. December). Therefore, a proper Nog's Eve celebration involves getting together with friends on November 30th, counting down to midnight and enjoying your first glass of cool Nog for the year.

If you're really interested, read this: http://chrisramblingon.blogspot.com/2007/12/nogs-eve-brief-history.html.

We didn't celebrate this year. Too busy. I hope we're not so lazy with Otto's first Christmas.

Speaking of Otto, he's turned into a little ball of sunshine. He smiles, and laughs, and coos. He makes eye contact. "Big deal!" you say? You can do all those things, right? Well, let me get sappy for a second. There's something in a baby's smile that just can't be described. If you could put it in a bottle you'd be a millionaire. If you don't believe me, I dare you to watch this video and not feel that something inside.

Notorious O.A.K.

2011-11-17T18:14:00.001-08:00

Wow.
It's been a really long time. Sorry about that. I've been...preoccupied.

Otto is 8 weeks old now! Can you believe it? I can't. It FEELS like it's been much less time. However, most people agree when they see Otto, it LOOKS like it's been much more time.

Otto is fat. There, I said it. Well, maybe not fat...just big. Really, really big.

Trisha takes him to a mom's group on Tuesdays. Some of the babies there are weeks older than Otto, but he's still the biggest one.

Today I was showing off pictures of him at work. A medical student asked me if he was 6 months old. In my mind I shrugged it off as the medical student not knowing anything about babies. I scoffed, "No, he's only 8 weeks" (subtext: you know-nothing-med-student).
To which she replied, "Oh, really? because my 5 month old isn't nearly that size."

He wears it well, though, don't you think? He's solid. And if he weren't big it just wouldn't be the same. Like Chris Farrley...no wait, that's not a good comparison. Like Drew Carrey...no, he wasn't great big or small. How about, Elvis...no, he was much better small. Andre the Giant (Anybody want a peanut?)? Maybe Santa?

I know...like Dolph Lundgren! Remember Rocky 4 when he was HUGE and AWESOME (albeit the bad guy, but still pretty cool) but then he made a bunch of lame movies like I Come in Peace (AKA Dark Angel) and he lost a bunch of weight and it just wasn't the same. Otto's like that, but not Russian and not a bad guy and not a boxer and not really able to stand or say one liners...

Never mind, no comparisons. He's big and he's beautiful and I love him to pieces.

He's also already too cool for me. Trisha took him to Victoria last week-end with her mom and her sisters to celebrate her mom's birthday. Then, I worked a lot this week and was busy with a bunch of other things. I hadn't seen Otto much for a while. Tonight, though, Trisha had to run errands. It was supposed to be just the boys at home tonight.

I was actually kind of excited when Otto woke up from his nap. We were going to hang out. So I cuddled him. Crying. I bounced him. Screaming. I walked him around. Hysteria. I concluded it must be that he was hungry. I set him down to make a bottle, but as I'm making the bottle I realize that he's not crying anymore. Lying flat on the ground and staring at the ceiling is somehow more comforting than hanging out with dad. Tear. Sigh. Gentle sob.

Away with Type A

2011-10-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

*Disclaimer: For some reason this post is really hard on engineers, residents and people from Kingston. I’m still going to post it because I think it’s kind of funny, but to those included in those groups please realize a lot of it has to do with me having a bad week.*

It's been a while.

I've actually been away from Trisha, Otto and Ralph for five straight days. It was kind of tough. Otto was kind enough to learn how to smile about an hour and a half before I got on a plane. So for about eight hours of travel time (with lay overs) I got to picture all the smiles Trisha was getting without me. I would have been jealous if I didn't consider all the diapers she was getting without me.

The one thing I thought I might benefit from was four nights of uninterrupted sleep. I thought I would come home rested and ready to study and parent and doctor. I was wrong.

Let me explain. This "vacation" was in Kingston. Why does anyone go to Kingston, you ask? Great question.

I'm from Winnipeg. I get it, it's not that rad for a lot of reasons, especially to people who have never been here. But Kingston is a whole different kind of joke. Kingston, it would seem, is not really a city at all. It's a city sized frat house.

The entire population exists in Ugg boots and jogging pants by day. By night, it's a mix of jersey shore-esque douchery, hippy dippy stoner prep ware, or the foreign grad student look. Over lunch I heard a group of thirty-somethings discussing their favourite ultimate Frisbee tournaments. We walked passed several houses with enough boxes of empty beer bottles out front to build a fort. One such house had three young men who had obviously just woken up. They were sitting out front staring blankly and speechlessly into the two PM daylight. At least one of them appeared to have slept in the back of his father's Suburban, which sat open next to them half on the lawn. This SUV contained about four pounds of whey protein/creatine, a pillow and an economics text book.

The sidewalks are peppered with splatter marks and on at least three occasions these splatter marks still contained fresh vomit. It is easy to presume that most of those splatter other marks were also made by some sort of bodily fluid. At least all the old buildings are classy.

Everyone wears school jackets. I didn't think anyone wore school jackets. Not only do they wear them, they torture and dye them by faculty-specific colours in some sort of ritualized dorkishness. On a nerdiness scale it makes Comic Con look like the Super Bowl. At first I thought it was just the engineers. This seemed acceptable to me because in general that faculty has a well known, nation wide communal thought/personality disorder. But it goes beyond engineering and even includes...medicine. If you ask me, there is a severe vacuum for a counter culture movement. If you’re wanting to start a revolution, Queens University is in desperate need of someone with independent thought and who ISN'T willing to sacrifice personal safety or fashion sense in the name of school spirit.

I think a great tag line for Queens university might be, "Queens: Is this the real life?" or, "Queens: I don't want to break free."

The reason I was at Queens was for a national review course for the Royal College licensing exam i have coming up in May. If you think it's stressful spending time around a one month old, try spending 5 days crammed in a room with overconfident, type A personalities from across the country that are either:

A) discovering that they don't know everything or,

B) trying to prove they do know everything.

I can make fun because I'm in no way immune to this, but on the "stressed out" spectrum of emergency medical residents I can pretty confidently say I'm way below average.

In all, a lot of people were able to put their neuroticism aside and I got to meet some descent people and I also got to spend some quality time with my fellow Winnipeg residents. That said, I missed Otto and Trisha and even Ralph like crazy.

It's really nice to be home. Otto is HUGE! It's amazing what can happen in 5 days. If it weren't for FaceTime and being able to see him for a few seconds each day, I may not have recognized him. He's still smiling a lot, which is a lot of fun. Today is Halloween. We dressed up. Don't you just hate it when parents force their own nerdy agenda on their children?

The Cloud (Otto's one month birthday)

2011-10-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

WE MADE IT! Otto's first month is in the books. Happy birthday, dude. Mom and dad love ya.

Otto Month One from Jeffrey Klassen on Vimeo.

Since I last posted I've gone back to work. I had an amazing four weeks hanging out with Trisha, Otto and Ralph, but I can't avoid the real world any longer.

That means I've essentially stopped getting up at night. Don't be too impressed. My overnight involvement has been tapering off over the course of a couple weeks. It's not for lack of wanting to help, but more for lack of having breasts. Eventually it ended up being me sitting on the floor reading a comic book waiting for my 20 second opportunity to burp the little guy. My wife very kindly started insisting I go to bed. She's the best, by the way, although sitting and reading comics on the floor in front of her at 4 am, I may have been more of an annoyance/disappointment than a help.

It's funny how nighttime changes as you progress through adulthood. When you first get married, nighttime is an incredibly useful resource for either working or having fun. You can go to late concerts or just hang out with friends, occasionally making the sacrifice of being a little tired the next day. As far as the work part, nighttime is always in your back pocket to study for six hours or get a presentation ready and coffee is a completely practical sleep substitute. You're able to do that because (a) you are young and (b) there is always an upcoming buffer time when you can sleep and catch up.

After a few years, though, it's less easy using nighttime usefully. Sleep becomes more and more valuable and, for some ideosyncratic reason, those buffers become fewer and farther in between. Pretty soon you'd rather watch a bad Jackie Chan movie at home than go to a late concert and drinking coffee after 3:30pm seems as risky as sharing needles on Furby Street.

This progression towards sleep dependence continues into your late twenties or early thirties and then, as if by some cruel joke, God gives you children.

For the last month, nighttime has been a looming cloud that is ominously and inevitably approaching. At around 8:00pm we begin frantically trying to predict how this storm cloud may play out, like a weather man with binoculars and a twelve sided die.

"He's eating now so I should cut him off early so he eats again at ten. We won't bundle him so he only gets a light sleep now but we'll double bundle him later. I'm going to close my eyes, but don't let me fall asleep. Turn the heat down one degree now then up three degrees in twenty minutes. And why are you jiggling him in a right obliquely horizontal, 33 beat-per-minute frequency now? That's his 9:45 jiggle routine!"

But it makes no difference. It gets dark outside, and your house turns into a twilight zone of sleep deprivation and disorientation.

How long have I been asleep in this chair? Is it today or yesterday? Did I just change him or did I just think about changing him? I think he just said, "mastodon."

My wife and I stagger through the fog, occasionally having intelligible interactions with each other. In fact, I have apparently had entire conversations at night I can't remember in the morning.Trisha says I've even given some good advice. I've gone to the bathroom, checked on the dog, and taken out trash at 3 in the morning and woken up the next day remembering nothing and wondering why I'm tired.

So in conclusion, let me say thanks again to my wonderful, beautiful wife for taking on "the cloud" on her own. Love you.

Is he broken? Did we break him?

2011-10-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that I really haven't had a conversation with anybody in the last 4 weeks without talking about Otto. That's normal, I think. At least, as far as I can remember from all our friends who had kids, once you've had them that's what you talk about.

What I didn't expect was how most of these conversations would go. I expected to be proud and to talk about how cute he is and all the cute stuff he does...but that's not what we talk about at all.

Conversations about Otto are mostly about seeking guidance. You see, we may talk about something cute he did or a cute feature he has, but that is promptly followed by the question, "Is that normal?"

Having a kid is a little (very little) like owning a complicated, high maintenance, adorable computer. Talking to friends is like phoning a computer help line...except you don't really know if your computer is broken or not. In fact you don't even know what your computer is supposed to be doing, but your concerned that whatever it is doing is not correct. You're proud of this computer and you show it off to everyone that comes to your house, but you can't figure out how to print or how to save or how to plug it in. Whenever your computer does something that concerns you, you are convinced it is because you didn't program it right. And you're pretty sure you only get one shot at programming it and if you screw it up your life will be ruined. The irony is that the people you have sought out for help own a completely different brand of computers, and are equally concerned that they screwed their computers up, they've just had them a bit longer so they know the bugs.

(That was a long analogy...sorry. I think I am working through some frustrations with Apple this week).

He only sleeps 3 hours at a time...is that normal?

He eats SOOO much...is that what your kid did?

His poop looks like this? That can't be right, can it?

When I hold him upside down and jiggle him in a counter clockwise motion he makes a sound like: vrrrrrrrrrrr. Do you think he'll have asthma?

Lucky for us, EVERYBODY is ready to give advice.

"My kid slept 6 hours a night from the moment he was born and it's all because I did 14 jumping jacks before I breast fed and then whistled "Patience" by Guns and Roses to put him to sleep."

"You can't swaddle him like that or he'll develop weak shoulders and probably be depressed when he tries to do push-ups as a teenager."

"I've heard that soother causes fibromyalgia in 62% of children."

Of course, a lot of comments are followed up with something like, "Oh, wait, that's not right, I can't really remember. Maybe we did the opposite."

(Note: Very many people have given us very useful advice and we thank you very much.)

And then there's the books you get referred to. One will say that you MUST hold your child constantly for three months. Another says if you even touch your child before age 3 they will probably never go to college. Feed your child exactly 13 minutes BEFORE they start to cry. Never feed your child until they've cried for an hour and half.

In the end it's all very confusing and frustrating and you cry a little (a lot) from time to time.

The embarrassing part is, well ... I'm a doctor.

I've worked in Children's Emergency. I thought I had all this parenting thing down BECAUSE I've given advice. I mean, a lot of advice. And while I still don't think it's justified to show up to emergency with your 2 year old at 3:30 in the morning because they pulled on their ear twice and then went back to bed, I do get it now (a little). It's stressful. And you worry about EVERYTHING. And I realize more than ever that when I tell a parent that it's "just colic" or that they should just "ride out the fussiness" or that "this cluster feeding is normal," going home and living with it is a whole other story.

So I think what I've leaned this week is, whether you get advice from your mother-in-law, your doctor, or a granny covered in cat hair in line at Safeway, advice and life are different.

One night last week Otto fell asleep in his swing, so we left him there and he slept 3 hours (that's his upper limit). So after we fed him we put him back in the swing and he slept another 3 hours. And then a third time. Trisha felt guilty. None of the books said that was okay. What if he got dependant on the swing? But when we woke up after actually getting 8 hour of sleep over a 12 hour period, I knew it didn't matter, it was worth it. We were both human again.

I call it the Swing Maneuver. I'm thinking about writing a book about it.

The Virtual Family Gathering

2011-10-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

Well I hope everyone's thanksgiving was great. (all the Canadians, anyways. Don't worry, Americans, you can wait a while before you have to be thankful)

We saw a lot of family this weekend. We took our first long road trip with Otto (all the way to Morden). Ralph and Otto slept soundly all the way there while mom quizzed dad on the differential diagnoses of ST elevation on EKGs. You know, the usual thanksgiving stuff.

However, we didn't see ALL my family or Trisha's family. I feel bad because I really want to show Otto off while he is (somewhat) little. So I turn to the Internet to solve this problem (the Internet solves most of my problems...the Internet and coffee).

In order to recreate the family gathering experience, here are the Klassen Family Thanksgiving FAQ's, derived by statistical analysis of all the questions we were asked at the three family gatherings we did make it to. To complete the virtual family gathering environment, turn the heat up in your house to 32 degrees Celsius and turn two television sets on at full volume, one playing the Maury Show and the other playing the last 30 minutes of Home Alone on a continuous loop.

1) How are you doing? Are you tired?

Yes

2) How does Otto feed?

He sucks on my wife's breast until milk comes out, then he swallows it.

3) Jeff, that's not funny, I meant is he a good eater?

Otto eats in 6 distinct steps.

Step 1: He begins dead asleep. He is so completely asleep you can lift his arm up and it flops down completely limp and lifeless. Remember when the British Bulldog would get Jake the Snake into a sleeper hold and the ref would lift Jake's hand and then drop it to see if he was unconscious? It's kind of like that. He sleeps so deeply you can hold his hand over his face and his palm will flop squarely on his forehead. Of course, I haven't done this (very often).

Step 2: Otto is awoken by hunger and promptly LOSES HIS MIND! The most impressive part is the time from the beginning of step one to the end of step two is about 3 seconds.

Step 3: Otto then attempts to swallow my wife whole.

Step 4: Otto realizes he is still hungry after a whole 4 seconds of eating. He decides this is unacceptable and seems to expect instant gratification (first world problems). Once again he LOSES HIS MIND!

Step 5: With consoling, coddling, encouraging, and coercion we manage to get small amounts of milk into Otto's belly.

Step 6: Otto falls asleep with a mouthful of milk +/- poops his pants.

4) Does he sleep well?

Hmmm. Compared to his parents, yes.

He sleeps a lot like an on call surgeon: at best he sleeps 1-3 hours at a time when he can while a lot of other people look after the details of his life. He demands a lot of attention when he wakes up and nobody wants to wake him unless they absolutely have to because they're not sure how he'll react.

5) Most people ask one of the following two questions:

5a) Wow! He's so big! How much does he weigh?

Yeah, I know, he's huge! He's over 10 pounds!

5b) Wow! I can't believe how small he is! How much does he weigh?

Yeah, I know, isn't he precious! He's just over 10 pounds!

There you have it.

We also got some awesome gifts. Thanks to all my family who thought of us and got Otto something. He seemed like he didn't appreciate, I know, but he did. Trust me.

One gift I have to highlight is this toque (or winter hat or noggin toboggan for some of my international readers):

My cousin, Kaylee Sawatzky, made this hat in three hours! She saw that we had an owl theme going on in Otto's room so she woke up the morning of the family gathering and started making it and three hours later, there was a hat where there was no hat before. Amazing. He might need to grow into it, but we're excited.

Otto's inspired a lot of art and craft around our house. My mother-in-law made us stacks of awesome blankets:

My wife sewed these super owlish curtains:

I drew a couple pictures that we framed for his wall:

And I made this mobile (I call it the Otto-mobile):

Not bad, huh?

To end the post today, some awesome rock and roll dog and kid photo shoot photo shots, including laser eyes and lil' lumberjack. Otto's outfit, by the way, is the outfit I wore home from the hospital when I was born. It is very Bruce Springstein. My mom gave it to me this weekend. Boss.

Air guitar! Solo face! Intensity!

The J. Klassen Method on Making and Losing Friends

2011-10-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

When we decided to have a kid, one big concern was that we were going to lose friends. Or at least not see them as much.

Friends are pretty important to me, but since my early twenties there has been a pretty steep decline in the number of friends I have had. The chart below will illustrate:

Of course, I wanted a kid, but I didn't want to have even fewer friends than we already had.

Well...it's been pretty interesting so far.

When we got a dog, I could sense half our friends rolling their eyes. I didn't blame them, I used to be the same way. When my brother and sister-in-law first got their pomeranian in the back of my mind I thought, "Why on earth would you get a dog? And why would you get a dog that looks like a cat?"

To me, it meant they could never travel and their house would always be a mess and they wouldn't sleep at night because of yapping...etc.

When they left for Kazakhstan to adopt their son, Cooper (who is awesome), somehow we ended up agreeing to look after this dust-bunny sized dog. We were looking down the barrel of two to three months with a yappy little mutt that could easily get lost in the laundry. I remember early on, I'd try to take a step towards this pup (named Scully, after X-Files) to pet her and she would run the other way and hide behind furniture. And then I couldn't find her and I'd panic. Honestly, she is so small, she could easily disappear into the air ducts. This was going to be a blast.

The next couple of days are a little bit hard to remember. I remember one day, Trisha had Scully somewhere, maybe at the family cabin, and I came home from work and there were no mouse sized paws scampering somewhere just out of sight. I continued to cautiously walk around the house as I had come accustomed to, making sure not to step on this nano dog until I convinced myself she wasn't around. And in astonishment, I had to admit to myself, I missed her.

For nearly three months, I loved that dog, and I still do. As soon as scully went back home, we started talking about getting our own.

But having a dog does polarize your friends a little. Some people stop coming over, understandably because of allergies or whatever. Other friends start coming over for the first time. We had friends that lived two streets over from us that we knew, and we liked, but for some reason we never got together. Then, suddenly they were over all the time. In fact, they would come over to check up on Ralph for us when we weren't home. So were we riding the coattails of our dog's popularity? Maybe.

It's no secret that once you have a dog on a leash you meet all sorts of people walking down the street. I have found, though, that a lot of the people you meet in that scenario are just a little off. There is one very pleasant lady in our neighbourhood that would never pass up a chance to meet a dog. I like her, and she's very nice...but she's nuts. She drives a bike with a stuffed dog in the front basket. She wears a helmet covered in stickers of dogs. Did I mention she's about 50 years old?

The first time we met her, she nearly bailed off her bike to get to Ralph as fast as she could. In her thick, french-canadian accent she says, " 'Allo, Ralph. You want to zay 'allo, Ralph? 'E's just trying to zay, 'allo."

She continued to speak to Ralph for about 3 minutes. She would say bizarre things, like, "'Dis is da precious pineapple!" It got to the point that even Ralph was tilting his head to the side as if to say, "What's your deal, lady?"

Eventually she turned to me and instructed me that, "It iz very good dat you 'ave ah 'arness. Dis type ov dog cannot wear ah collar because if zay choke to 'ard, eh, dare eyez, day can POP out ov dare 'ead."

I started to laugh and then realized she was serious.

Babies have the same affect on neighbours. Our old walks that used to take about 20 minutes now take well over an hour because everyone wants to see Otto (he's that good looking). We've met a dozen people that live on our street that we had never met before. Two sets of neighbours who have never been inside our house have made us meals. It's been pretty nice, if not a little bit revealing as to how we segregated ourselves when we were D.I.N.Ks. (Dual Income No Kids).

And as for the friends we already had, it's been pretty amazing as well. One set of friends transplanted all of their 18 month old's infant-care items into our house, easily saving us $1500 (strollers, carriers, etc). They made us meals and bring us coffee. Another set of friends have had us over to eat twice, brought food to our house once and once showed up with cookies just because. They call all the time just to see how we're doing and send Trisha supportive texts on a regular basis. We really love those friends.

And then there's Facebook, and now this blog, that has allowed me to connect with all sorts of people. There are people reading this blog that I never expected to care, and that's been really, really appreciated.

That all being said, this makes for 6 posts in about a week. It's been fun posting like this, but I've discovered it takes a lot of time. Therefore, I'm going to cut back. I've been so happy with how many people have been reading this thing. (Almost 500 views this week!) I really hope you'll continue to check back every now and then, and even tell other people if you think they would be interested. However, I think I'm going to cut the posts down to somewhere around twice a week.

Finally, I wanted to say one more thing. My wife has been a real super star over the last two and a half weeks. I watched her turn into a great mom so quickly and so naturally. Trisha has always been talented and caring and beautiful and organized, and motherhood has only accentuated each of her remarkable traits. I love you, Trisha. I love you, family.

Little Baby Drug Dealers

2011-10-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

I'm OK with this.

Yesterday, I didn't post anything. The night before was a little rough.

Otto's not a great sleeper. He's not bad, I've certainly heard of a lot worse. But last night, you could only describe this kid as purely nocturnal.

He needed to be walked to go to sleep, and that took about 2 hours each time. There were two episodes of 4 diaper changes in 20 minutes. He fussed and squirmed and pooped and cried and grunted and even just sat there looking around. But he didn't sleep.

By the end of the night we had incorporated a hybrid sleep strategy from every expert we could access. (Happiest Baby on the Block, the Baby Whisperer, the Dog Whisperer, Dr. Oz, Dr. Suess, Dr. Dre, Steve Jobs and a little Inception.)

Didn't work.

What I noticed last night was the weird affect a baby has on a person in an emotional state. When I was lying in bed and he started to fuss (he doesn't really scream; he cries in very subtle and artistic ways), I would be upset and grumpy. But after getting him up, changing his clothes, and changing his diaper for the fourth time and we were finally bundled and relaxed in our rocking chair, I would still be exhausted... but it didn't seem awful. He would make a face that would resemble a smirk and he would flail his arms in frustrating and adorable ways, and just like that, it wasn't that bad.

It's weird. The only thing that I've seen that can change a person's demeanour so quickly is drugs. Think about this, I'm a pacifist, but if ANYBODY ELSE were to yell at me every twenty minutes for an entire night and then smear mustard coloured feces down my leg, I might lose it. But not with Otto. This guy wakes me up at 3am, stretches out the collar of my favourite David Bowie shirt, cries through a diaper change, pees up my arm in the 2 seconds between old diaper and new diaper, cries through a sleeper change and completely disrespects my excellent renditions of select acapella Radiohead songs. But once we're settled into our rocking chair, both drifting off to sleep, I can't remember why I was upset and I'm kind of happy I get to hang out...and then he has an atomic poop explosion in his pants. Again.

How can babies do that? (The state of mind change thing, not the atomic poop explosion.) It's like they excrete some sort of inhaled narcotic that instantly affects anyone in a 20 foot radius. But it effects different people in different ways.

For Tirsha and I, Otto is like marijuana. When we've got a list of 40 things to do and Otto has barfed all over our new furniture and we should be super stressed out, we just laugh a lot. And talk about how big his hands are. And I'm eating a lot more snacks. And anyone who knows Trisha should be interested that now, suddenly, she doesn't care if the house is a little messy (That's major. I should be clear, it's still pretty spotless and organized.) Me on the other hand, I seem to be a little more paranoid. It's funny that the hot water tank temperature, furnace filter and stair hand rail are suddenly so important.

For sisters/sisters-in-law/mothers/mothers-in-law/ladies at church, Otto is a lot more like crystal meth. They will claw and scratch their way close to him and once they've got their hands on him they DO NOT let go. They become irrational and potentially violent (to others. Not to Otto). And it only takes the briefest exposure and they are addicted. I feel bad for the people that live with these women when they go home, because I'm positive there's some sort of withdrawal process. Although I don't mind the side effect of them loving to change his diaper. (love you guys, come over any time)

For other guys my age, Otto is a little more like ketamine. It doesn't matter how tough or confident they are, once they're holding Otto, they dissociate into spacy, mindless masses. They may snap out of it into some sort of nightmare.

Otto's pretty amazing, though. One of my areas of interest is human behaviour. I have researched and observed and surveyed and taught for a few years now, and I don't know how to change it. All he knows how to do is poop, eat and sleep and he's already got everybody in line.

And to complete my sappiness quota for today (and to make up for missing yesterday) I must say this to my big boy, Otto. You are not a drug dealer, you are just adorable and it's not chemicals that make me like being up with you all night, it's love. There. I said it and it's true. You can all make fun of me now.

By the way, for any other parents out there looking for sleeping tips...white noise. I don't care if I have to play it every night in my house for the next 18 years, it works and it puts me to sleep, too.

It's Otto's second week birthday today. No, I didn't make him a video this week. Maybe I'll save that for all the firsts (first month, first year, etc.) but here's the one I made last week in case anyone missed it:

Otto learns about politics

Otto, only 2 weeks ago! With my beautiful wife, Trisha.

New bud, Brody.

So innocent.

Mennos Drink Espressos

2011-10-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

You know those people that you see in public places with three or more children who just seem to have it together? They're dressed nicer than your are, their kids are dressed nicer than you are, they're not screaming, they're intermittently laughing with each other. The dad stops to pick up a leaf to show his 3 year old daughter and effectively explains photosynthesis in three sentences. Meanwhile, the two year old son is doing cartwheels while reciting the nation capitals of Africa in alphabetical order. You think to yourself, "Wow! Those people really have it together. They must be great parents."

How do you get there?

Otto. Staying out of trouble.

You would think that rearing children is in my blood. You see, my last name is Klassen. My mom was a Friesen. That makes me extremely mennonite. Thorough bred.

If you don't know what a mennonite is, that's fine, but for the purposes of this post you should know that mennonites are pretty well known for having A LOT of poorly coordinated, extremely sober, cheap-skate children.

While I didn't have an overly large family, both of my parents did. My mom has 9 brothers and sisters and my dad has 4. I know, it's not quite TLC-syndication worthy, but it's still a lot of people to fit into one place for a Christmas party. Fact is both sides of my family now have family gatherings in churches and community halls because there's just too many people. Especially now that the cousins are mostly married and many have kid's of their own.

My step-grandma called me this morning to say congratulations about Otto. It was very nice. It's impressive that she can be personable with any of us grandkids given the following facts:

When she married my grandpa, he already had ten kids, most of them married and with kids of their own. Several years after he past away, she re-married a nice man who had 12 kids, all of whom were married and had kids of their own. She told me today that Otto is her 52nd great grandchild! And that's JUST my mom's side.

And none of us are psychopaths. Nobody in that enormous mass of human beings has ever turned into a serial killer or a cult leader or a politician.

How is that possible?

I've been trying to think back to my upbringing. How can I raise Otto to be as straight laced and well behaved as my sister and I? Here are some unofficial tips I think my parents used pretty effectively:

1. Learn a language your child doesn't understand. My parents both speak a strange, hybrid language called low german, which seems to be part dutch, part yiddish and part martian. It was perfect for sheltering us from dirty jokes, "adult" conversations and Christmas present discussions. I believe that somehow this kept my sister and I naive to most things until our early twenties.

2. Buy your kid's first gun early. Of course, I'm not serious. Working in emergency, I'm not a big fan of guns. In fact, I endorse gun registration whole heartedly (sorry dad). Perhaps the heading should be: Spend time with your kids when they're young. I got my first .22 rifle when I was about 11 (I think) and I would spend a lot of time hunting or target shooting. It was great bonding time with my dad and, ironically, kept me out of a lot of trouble, I'm sure. As a teenager, many of the guns in our house were stored IN MY ROOM (sans ammunition of course). By the time I was an adolescent, guns held no mysticism anymore, and were for the most part, kind of boring. But again, not serious. Please don't buy your kids guns.

3. Move to the middle of nowhere. I grew up in a village called Roseisle. You should really satellite google it, it's quite remarkable. Two or so streets. About 45 people. I never learned to do anything bad, because there was nothing bad to do. The town does have three churches, though, which may also have something to do with my innocent upbringing.

4. Be more fun and interesting than your kid's friends. I never really had enough energy to keep up with my dad. Fishing, water-skiing, camping, snowmobiling, road trips, go-carts. When I was about 8, my dad built a three wheeler. He BUILT it. When I was a teenager we built a life sized, remote control robot. Are you kidding me? He was like MacGyver with a beard.

"What's that, mister delinquent, teenager, high-school friend? You want to smoke drugs with me? Sorry, I'm busy. My dad and I are going to build a rocket ship that can go back in time, but maybe later?"

If anything, I'm sorry I didn't spend more time with my dad.

My awesome dad with Otto and Otto's cousin, Teagan.

5. Just let your kid be a little bit weird. My parents were very supportive of me...and very patient. They never gave me a hard time about listening to hard-core heavy metal, or being in a hard-core metal band, or about dying my hair. They encourage me to draw comic books and program computers and do all sorts of socially abnormal things. I think my parents had pretty good insight into letting me do things as long as they weren't dangerous or evil, and because of all that support, I never really felt like I needed to rebel. Thanks, mom and dad.

Anyways. That's what I've got so far.

If you're wondering about the title of this Post, Nils Vik (a la Parlour Coffee. See earlier posts) informed me today that espressos are the cheapest way to get the most caffeine into your body and referred to them as a good Menno drink. Never thought of espresso as a Mennonite thing, but it makes sense.

And because I will squeeze every bit of attention I can get out of this six year old triumph, here's the shining moments of my med school career in all their lo-fi, underproduced glory, Menno in Med School:

The Winnipeg Hipster Index

2011-10-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

I want to tell you my favourite jokes of the summer (which I stole from 2 Chris friends...read on):

1.) How did the hipster burn his mouth?

A: He was eating pizza way before it was cool.

(thank you Chris Yorke)

2.) How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Well, it's a pretty obscure number, you've probably never heard of it.

(thank you Chris Campbell)

Trisha and I have been occasionally bringing up the topic of what Otto is going to be like when he's older. It's mostly me who's bringing it up:

"Do you think he'll be funny? I bet he'll be funny. Unless he's serious, but that's fine, too. Maybe he'll be really into the Smiths or something. Do you think he'll watch Curb Your Enthusiasm with me? What if he doesn't like Curb Your Enthusiasm? How old do you have to be to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm? You know what, we better never show him Curb Your Enthusiasm."

The poor kid JUST learned how to open his eyes. He's only known how to breathe for about 10 days and already I'm ruminating about his what his favourite novel might be. I'm trying to stop.

Ironically, there's a big part of me that doesn't even want him to grow up. I'm already noticing how much he's changed and I'm not that into it. He's not sleeping as much during the day and he's feeding a little less often. It's kind of weird, but it makes me just a little sad.

In honesty, it's not that big of deal to me, but I think it all started with a running joke during the pregnancy. There was this never ending conversation about what I would do if I had a son and he was into sports. Anyone who knows me knows I don't do sports. And suddenly I was picturing myself being dragged to a hockey arena at 6 in the morning by a Sydney Crosby wanna be (minus the concussion) in about 5 years. (By the way, I'm the only guy in Winnipeg that seems kind of indifferent about the Jets coming back. Although I am excited about new restaurants downtown.)

But this all blossomed into all the other things my kid could be. A hipster? A hippie? A punk? A jock? A nerd? A health nut? A Nickleback fan? Honestly, I'm happy with whatever he becomes (accept the Nickleback thing) but now I'm curious to see which it's going to be.

But is he really going to be a type cast character from a '90's teen movie? I realize that's not how it works. I've been each of those things at some part in my life, and sometimes all of them to varying degrees. (except the Nickleback thing). It's all a spectrum. Right?

For instance, I used to think I was a hipster. I thought this because, in my opinion, I dressed interestingly and I listened to pretty good music. Then I met real hipsters and I quickly realized I don't have the energy or foresight or organization skills to be a true hipster. (Do you know I've actually heard a conversation jump from the importance of sock and shirt colour coordination to how the current use of saxophones in modern east coast indie rock is an impressive and interesting turn of events?)

That being said, to a lot of my friends I think I am a hipster because I talk about music they've never heard of and I'm hard on them for liking Nickleback (and I wear ridiculous glasses).

Let me boil it down to a simple example. I read pitchfork.com. To half of my friends (the non-hipsters) that makes me a hipster because it's somewhat pretentious and kind of weird. To the other half of my friends (the hipsters) it makes me lame and predictable because pitchfork is not nearly pretentious enough.

On the scale of Winnipeg hipsterdom it probably boils down to something like this:

Maybe? I don't know, it's pretty early in the morning. By the way, I really like Parlour Coffee.

Basically, what I'm getting at, is I hope Otto is balanced, but even more importantly, I hope he's happy. Hipster, punk, jock, or even... Nickleback fan. Sounds sappy, but, there it is.

And because I know it's going to start coming up more and more, let me address my current feelings on the whole will-he-be-a-doctor-some-day discussion. At this point in my life, let me say I hope not. That may change, and if he decides he does want to I will support him. But the day my son comes up to me and tells me he wants to wash cars or serve fries or teach water aerobics for the rest of his life, at least I know he'll never have to write this unbelievable licensing exam.

(Admission: I didn't read yesterday.)

I know the feeling, Ralph. I've got the same helpless look as you do in the first picture most of the day.

Slowly getting back to normal...sort of.

2011-10-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

We are slowly beginning to do things we used to do before Otto was born.

Yesterday we managed to watch a little TV. We've left the house a handful of times. We've even been walking Ralph.

It's obvious, though, that nothing is quite the same as it was before. For instance, even as a type now, it's mostly with one hand because the other is holding a drunk looking, milk stained miniature grandpa in his monkey pyjamas.

I've even started reading again. I have an exam I'm studying for. In fact, when it comes to Otto, this exam has given me more stress than anything else. More than crying, more than diapers, more than sleep deprivation (which I'm a little bit used to anyways.)

This is my licensing exam. It's only in May, but I've done the math, and if I want to get through most of the examinable material by then I should start studying...about two months ago. When we broke the news to some of the people I work with that we were going to have Otto in September the response was a muted, "oh?"

As in, "You mean right before your exam?"

As in, "So there's something wrong with you?"

As in, "Well, you can always write the exam next year...I guess."

It was a concern. And Trisha and I talked about it. We've let my chosen career dictate how our lives go for way too long. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job but I've given up a lot of stuff for it. I've lost friends, I've forgotten how to play guitar, I've gained weight and then lost weight and then lost hair and then gained ulcers. So we decided, enough. Having kids is important to us and we want them now so we're going to have them. And that's it.

And guess what, last night alone (between burping and rocking to sleep) Otto and I read about asthma and reviewed all the relative and absolute contraindications for fibrinolysis in stroke and ST elevation myocardial infarction.

We're going to be okay.

"C'mon, Dad! Keep reading! My pampers ain't gonna pay for themselves!"

I swear this wasn't set up. Trisha found Ralph like this just after lunch. I guess he may be more jealous than we thought.

A Cultural Education

2011-09-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

My wife, Trisha and I, feel it is very important that Otto understands where he comes from. That is why, yesterday, on his first venture outside our house, Otto's first exposure was an ultimate testament to the culture in which he will be raised.

Of course, that culture is caucasian yuppiedom. It was an embarrassingly white kind of day, with boring, upper middle class plastered all over it.

We loaded up into our Volkswagon station wagon and headed to Osbourne Village (Winnipeggers will understand). We listened to an educated mix of Northern European post-punk synth bands on our way. Fever Ray and the like. You know, the usual.

Our first stop was Starbucks for a decaf, half-sweet white chocolate mocha and just a simple bold coffee for me...oh, what's that? Yukon blend? No, thanks, too nutty I think. We'll just go with the Pike Place....I guess. (eye roll).

From there we strolled over to American Apparel. Picked out some matching grey cardigans for the family. Strolling back towards the car, passed a record store. New Wilco album, huh? Very interesting. Have to remember to check that out on iTunes (You know, instead of just going into the store and buying it there.)

No time to doddle (that's right, I said doddle). Got to get home to our designer lap dog, Ralph. Half boston-terrier, half pug. Very cute but very hyper. We think it might have something to do with his medication*.

On the way home we discuss the trouble we've been having with Ralph's daycare. (You heard me). Monday's are getting too full and they've asked us to move to another day, but Peanut the Yorkie goes to Monday class and Ralph just won't manage without Peanut. Plus Sasha is so attached to Ralph, we won't be able to make a decision until we discuss it with her owners. (first world problems).

Yikes.

*(That was a joke. He's not on medication. It didn't agree with his stomach.)

Why blog?

2011-09-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

I've never really followed a blog. Except failblog, but that doesn't really count. Everyone followed failblog at some point. But things have changed quite a bit for me recently, so I decided maybe I should give it a shot.

This has been (and will continue to be) a big year. My wife and I both turned 30. A week ago we had our first child (Otto is his name and he is kind of awesome). In less than a year I will complete 25 years of education and will be a non-student for the first time ever. There are a lot of 'firsts' going on all around me and I'm just beginning to realize, I can't really remember many of the 'firsts' that have already past.

So that's my rational reason for blogging, I guess. The reason I can bring up at a dinner party and not sound vane or pretentious. Consider it a diary, if you will, documenting the milestones in my life and effectively sharing them with the world around me.

Of course, humans aren't rational. And if I expect anyone to ever read this, it better be honest. I want to entertain. And I love to tell stories about myself and my job and my awesome family. And I can sense half my Facebook friends getting sick of pictures of my kid or my dog or my kid and my dog.

So the other half of my Facebook friends (the ones that realize how great my kid and my dog are) they can get there fix here. And maybe I can tell a funny med school story or two. Or maybe a funny Winnipeg story. Who knows?

And for any non-Facebook friends, if your looking for a glimpse into the exotic world of a Canadian, two income, middle-class family with one kid and one dog, look no further. It's going to be a wild ride.

See?! Awesome!