I didn't realize how much time had transpired. Kelly was taking a nap after giving birth so I had nowhere else to be. It wasn't until one of the nurses asked me if there was something wrong with my baby that I realized I was the only dad hanging out here…so reluctantly (and making sure that I knew exactly what she looked like so they didn't try to pull the old switcheroo on me) I headed back down to see how my sleeping wife was holding up.
When I got there I found that she wasn't sleeping and was more than a little unhappy with my absence. She had jumped to the obvious conclusion that because I wasn't there when she awoke, that the child must be undergoing some grave medical procedure and/or captured by terrorists. When I informed her that she was doing great, I was then thrashed for letting her think there might have been something wrong. No amount of explaining that she was asleep and there was nothing for me to do in the room would make up for my transgression. I believe at one point, my life was threatened with a spork, but that is neither here nor there. I was just introduced to post-pregnancy hormones.
But things changed quickly.
Kelly rapidly became her old upbeat, non-spork-threatening self and we took our little girl home for the first time. I believe I averaged 11 miles per hour on the ride home.
I quickly learned a lot of things:
1) I cannot swaddle a child to save my life. Kelly showed me 137 different times and each time, the only thing I could get to work was the "roll the baby like a burrito" technique, which the moms all seemed to frown upon, so we invested in those Velcro baby straitjackets (I'm sure there is some cute name for them like "cuddlers" or "huggers" but we all know what they really are).
2) Apparently a six pound baby can poop as much as a 200 pound adult male. Good lord.
3) Babies are loud.
4) Babies are not good communicators.
5) Babies eat more than one would think.
6) All my wife and her preggy friends were going to talk about for the next six months was breast feeding and various gadgetry for the baby that we would eventually purchase and likely never use.
7) I really love my baby.
The last one was the coolest part of the whole experience. Through all of the torture that the midget put us through over the first few months when we were newbie parents, there were always those moments – when she holds your finger, or falls asleep on your chest, or hits a fade-away-jumper to win the championship - when you really are amazed that you created this adorable little person – and there is nothing in your life that means more.
Without getting overly sappy about my daughter, I'll give you the highlights of the last year:
1) One day old - The grandparents all call. They want to know how Siena is, how Kelly is, and when we plan on having the next one.
2) One day until 2.5 months – lots of crying, eating, pooping, and not enough sleeping.
3) 2.5 months – Siena starts sort of smiling and make a lot of grunting noises. We eventually realize she is mimicking, not her parents, or other kids, but our dogs. She still does this, much to my amusement and my wife's chagrin.
4) 3 months – Siena is way too small for the exer-saucer, but she clearly wants to play in it, so dad takes his college yearbooks and Kelly's pediatric nursing book, and fashions an elevated platform so that she could use it. She instantly loved it.
5) 3.5 months – dad fashions a saddle for the family's Jack Russell and straps Siena in for the ride of her life. (Note: This never happened due to Kelly blathering on about it "being dangerous")
6) Almost 4 months – Siena rolls over. She also is sleeping through the night.
7) 4 months – Siena eats her first cereal. She hates it.
8) 4 months, 1 day – Siena houses a metric ton of cereal and rapidly starts progressing towards veggies and fruits.
9) 6 months – Siena is using a combination of rolling and sliding to get around the floor.
10) 7 months – Siena starts picking up food with her hands. This is a phenomenal revelation for the dogs, as they realize that Siena drops roughly half the food she picks up. This becomes even better for them when she decided that the dogs chasing the food she drops is wildly amusing.
11) 8 months – Siena starts crawling. At first, this was awesome. Then we realized she could crawl faster than we could run and that despite having 2,358 toys specially designed by Baby Einstein, Fisher Price, etc. to get a kids attention, she is only interested in the dog's food, my stereo, and the wine rack.
12) 8 months – Although we think she has been talking for about a month, we're now certain that Siena is saying: Hi, mamamamama, dada, this, and that. This and that are used as one word questions where she points to something and asks "This?" and then waits for a response.
13) 8.5 months – Siena begins barking when people come to the door…like the dogs.
14) 9 months – Siena is the master of the raspberry and often enjoys spitting food at dad when she is done eating. Somewhere around here she starts doing the highly overrated baby signs. Even though she understands many of them, she really only uses the one for "more". Thusly, more could mean "more" or it could mean "please put out the avocado farmer – he is on fire."
15) 9.5 months – Siena starts pulling herself up to a standing position. No remote control or tasty beverage will ever be safe again.
16) 10 months – Siena has her first Christmas. Both sets of grandparents provide her with large noisemakers or as they like to call them "toys". Our home is now a cornucopia of talking animals, trains, and dolls, all of which are multi-lingual. Siena seems happy with this new development. I secretly rejoice every time my Jack Russell "takes one out" and now hate Winnie the Pooh and all his honey smacking antics.
17) 10.5 months – I have started to teach Siena how to wrestle and do jiujutsu. She has quite the knack for it and finds it incredibly amusing. Our neighbors did too, until Siena put one of them in an arm bar and made them tap out. I took her out for ice cream afterwards.
18) 11 months – Siena has been "cruising", which is the mom term for walking around a table while holding on to it, for about a month now, but she is taking it to a new level now. We know she can walk if she decides to, but thankfully she has not.
19) 11.5 months – Siena's personality is really shining through. Apparently completely unlike her parents, she is very stubborn and demanding. She is solidly above average for size, which given our phenomenal genetics is a freakin' miracle.
20) 12 months. Our baby is a year old. She is really a happy kid, who spends most of her day laughing, destroying dad's stuff, and trying to figure things out. On her birthday, she started saying "Rob" which brought a lot of happiness to our good friend Salvador, who just really likes the name Rob.
It's a funny thing. Kel and I have accomplished a lot of things in our lives and have had the luxury to have a lot of fun all across the world, but this last year, exhausting, stressful, and domesticated as it was, has been our absolute best yet. Sitting around playing with our daughter and seeing what a fun and happy little person she has become has been a real blessing, and even though we are a little sad to see her grow up so quickly, we're excited to see what she does (probably to us) next.
Thanks to all of you that have made our little girl the happy person she is today. Kelly could probably pull this off by herself, but it takes a lot of great people to offset my parenting skills, and we appreciate it.
