Becoming A Dad

Chimps are renowned for their human-like intelligence and activities. They are said to be Man’s closest relative, but that’s not including Uncle T— who as a child looked so much like me that when I saw a 30 year old photograph of him dressed up in a Scout uniform, I was confused as I never was in Scouts. But that’s another story.

One thing that continually is referred to is the chimp’s ability to change his environment, modifying sticks, leaves, stones and other materials to expand his abilities. We call this tool use, and it’s one of the great indicators of intelligence.

I’m proud to say that Juliette has now entered the Chimp stage.

I have witnessed several occasions now where she has used a stick or long toy to scoop blocks and other toys that are just out of reach towards her so she can pick them up.

She’s even got the chimp howls and screams down to a Tee. I always wanted a monkey and now I’ve got my very own!

What I haven’t written about for the past week or so is that Juliette is now in daycare. She started March 1, with about a half-day with Becoming-A-Mom watching. Then Day 2 with Becoming-A-Mom leaving after an hour; the Day 3 with Becoming-A-Mom dropping her off and leaving here there the full day

Days 4 and 5 were Becoming-A-Dad dropping her off at 8 am with Becoming-A-Mom picking her up around 4 pm. Ditto for this second week, now in Day 7.

Tomorrow is the Big Day. Becoming-A-Mom returns to work after her maternity leave for the first set of shifts… and she’s been a little stressed by the coming change.

What this means is that tomorrow morning I drop Juliette off at 8 am, then pick her up at 5 pm. As Becoming-A-Mom works 12 hour shifts, I will be on my own until at least 8:30 pm when she will get home. A significant departure from the routine of the past year.

So… tomorrow I may not be so happy. Juliette is not yet weaned and will not take formula from a bottle. She is used be being nursed before going to sleep and at least once during the night. And let’s face it, I am not fully-equipped to be nursing the kid. Bottles and formula are in the future, as are hours of screaming and tantrums and general unhappiness. And that’s just me.

This is a prequel to the earlier Crisis? What Crisis? post.

What tipped me off to Becoming-A-Mom sleep-searching for Juliette was the couple of prior incidents of other sleep-paranoia actions that have occurred during the past 2 weeks.

At least three times I’ve been awoken to an arm being quickly and firmly thrown over me, pulling me in towards Becoming-A-Mom.

The first time this happened I thought I was having a nightmare – I wasn’t quite awake and not quite asleep either, but I found myself with an arm wrapped around me pulling my face into her breasts.

Normally this would be cause for celebration, except that Becoming-A-Mom was asleep too, and apparently intent on suffocating me rather than initiating a more pleasant activity.

I fought my way free, literally, as every time I removed her arms another would come slapping down in an frantic attempt to keep me from getting away. At some point I woke up completely and realized she was still sleeping, so I started saying loudly, “It’s okay! It’s okay! Relax!”

Eventually she woke up, turned over and went to sleep.

The second and third times were similar, except I was facing away from her and found myself being yanked back towards the middle of the bed. Again, she was asleep or nearly so.

It turns out that she’s having recurring dreams where Juliette is rolling away from her and about to fall out of bed, so she instinctively is reacting and desperately grabbing out to save her baby from this fate. This is a laudable reaction, except for two things:

1) It’s not Juliette falling out of bed, and

2) I’m not falling out of bed either. I’m turning over in my sleep.

I should be happy that she’s looking out for me, but to be quite honest I’d rather just turn over in my sleep and continue sleeping rather than having a quite nasty adrenaline rush from being clubbed and grabbed by her.

Now I feel bad – having written all that, Becoming-A-Mom has stopped by to check on what I’m up to. She’s just showed me the really nasty bruise and cut/bruise she has on her right leg and knee where she fell out of bed the other night… she must have stumbled into her bedside table as well to have gotten the cut. They’re bright pink/red centers surrounded by dark purple bruising, swollen and generally looking painful. And here I am making fun of her.

“Where’s Juliette? Where is she?”

There was a rustling and movement to my right in the bed.

“A—-, where is she? I can’t find Juliette!”  More rustling.

“What’s going on?” I ask, confused and still mostly asleep.

A loud THUD, the sort of sound you get when someone falls out of bed onto a laminated hardwood floor. I checked – I was still in bed so it wasn’t me.

“Where is Juliette?”

I feel little fingers on my toes. “She’s standing at the end of the bed, grabbing my toes.”

I frown to myself. “When did you take her out of her crib? What’s going on?”

“She’s not here! Where is she? I can’t find her!” More noises of someone moving about in the dark, sweeping her hands over the bedsheets.

I feel more fingers on my feet and realize it’s Becoming-A-Mom crawling around in the dark like a mad hen, searching for a missing baby.

“When did you take her out of the crib?” I ask. No answer. “What’s going on? When did you take her out of the crib?” Still no answer.

A slow dawning realization hit me. She was having another of her crazy dreams, and she believed that Juliette had crawled away from us in our bed.

“She’s in her crib. Everything’s fine, go back to sleep!” I said, kind of irritated.

“Where is she?” Becoming-A-Mom asked one final time.

“She’s in her crib. Everything is fine. Go to sleep!” I repeated.

Becoming-A-Mom got back into bed, lay down and pulled the covers over herself. After a few moments I couldn’t help myself and started laughing. I giggled quietly, my body convulsing with laughter for a minute or two before rolling over myself and going back to sleep.

I mentally added another point for Becoming-A-Dad. Another crisis averted.

Sheesh, what’s going on around this place anyhow?

Just got word that another friend is expecting twins in August… that brings the total number of babies/expected babies among our close friends and colleagues to around 10 or 12 since January.

Whoever is responsible – stop it already! You’re freaking me out.

Juliette has picked up a few little charming tricks over the past few weeks.

It started about 3 weeks ago when I was feeding her. She took too big a slug of water from her sippy cup and started coughing and sputtering. She coughed long enough to be on the verge of being upset, so Becoming-A-Mom and I made a game out of it. We pretended to make coughing noises ourselves and laughed. Pretty soon she started to make fake coughing noises too, with a big smile on her face.

That has continued. She regularly makes fake coughing noises in order to make us laugh or get attention. She has a mischievous smile on her face when she’s doing this.

In the last couple of days she’s picked up two new tricks – making fake laughing sounds, or fake crying noises. It’s really hard to tell sometimes when she’s making the fake crying to tell if  it’s real or not, especially if you’re a bit of a distance away or not paying attention to what’s going on. She’s faked me out a few times where I really thought she was upset and crying for some reason. What gives it away is the little grin that comes after she gets us to look.

I have no idea how she learned this or when she decided it was a good thing to do. But our little faker is full of surprises, so I’m sure we’re in for more tricks in the coming days and weeks.

I was away on a business trip for a few days and just got home yesterday. Since the flight landed just before Juliette normally goes to bed I quickly phoned home and let Becoming-A-Mom know I was coming home soon and not to put her to sleep yet.

Due to all the optimizations done at the Vancouver airport for the 2010 Winter Olympics my passage from the plane to the taxi happened in record time. I had *NO* wait at Immigration as I used their automated system – I can hardly believe it myself! And then the baggage arrived at the carousel just before I got to it, and for some lucky reason my bag was in the first 10 bags out, nicely standing up so all I had to do was grab the handle and head for the exit. At the Customs area again there was no line and I breezed through.

The strangest part was there being no one in line at the taxis either – so straight into a taxi I got and in a flash I was on my way. Total time from plane hitting the tarmac to taxi leaving the airport was about 20 minutes!

Anyway, that’s not the important stuff. Just the startling part.

When I got home I knocked on the door. Becoming-A-Mom answered, holding Juliette in her arms. It took about 5 seconds before Juliette realized what was going on – she had this kind of blank look on her face as she stared at me. Then the look of recognition came over her, and she broke into the biggest smile I’ve seen on her. She started to jump up and down in Becoming-A-Mom’s arms and make excited noises.

She immediately leaned towards me and grabbed on to my collar and I gladly took her in my arms. She gave me a big hug and sat contentedly in my arms, smiling away. She stayed there hugging me, pushing the side of her head against my cheek for several minutes as I chatted with her and Becoming-A-Mom about what happened over the past few days. I forgot how nice it was to just hold her and have her sit in my arms.

After nearly 16 hours of straight travel, including a frantic 2-hour dash through Heathrow Airport and nearly missing my flight home, this was the best welcome home this Becoming-A-Dad could have hoped for.

Okay, it’s short one and here’s the secret. Done correctly your sins for the past day to 6 months will be forgiven, depending on the severity of the trespass.

Chocolate Lava Cake

Makes 4 servings

4 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 egg yolks

2 whole eggs

1/4 cup of sugar

2 teaspoons all-purpose flour

In a double-boiler, melt the chocolate with the butter over medium heat until completely melted and smooth.

Warm the eggs and egg yolks to room temperature. Beat or whisk together the egg yolks, eggs and sugar at high speed until very light in colour and the texture of a thin foam.

Mix in about 1/4 cup of melted chocolate mixture into the eggs. Carefully fold the egg mixture with the flour into the melted chocolate. Cover and put into the fridge to cool for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the over to 325F. Butter and flour well 4 ramekins. Divide the mix into the ramekins and tap gently to distribute it into the cups evenly.

Bake the cakes for 10-15 minutes (depending on how cooked you want them – I prefer the center to be undercooked and runny). The top should spring back after being lightly touched, though I personally remove them from the oven while the center is still slightly jiggly and sticky to the touch.

Cool briefly (2-3 mins) then run a knife around the edge of the ramekin before inverting on the serving plate. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and serve immediately with whipped cream.

You can make this recipe ahead and freeze it in the ramekins. Just thaw in the fridge overnight before baking. Or if you’re clever like me, you hide 2 of them in the  back of the fridge and whip them out the day after Valentine’s day for an encore dessert.

For added pizzaz you can make Grand Marnier Whipped Cream:

Mix 1/4 tsp grated orange zest, 1 oz of Grand Marnier, 1 tbsp sugar and 6 oz of whipping cream.  Whip until thick. Goop generously on the plate.

Good luck!

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. No excuses really, just feeling rather tired and lazy most days. Plus the accumulated sleep deprivation is now affecting my ambition and desire to do anything other than brain-dead activities that don’t require any mental processing. I have succeeded in attaining my cut-free lobotomy.

We just got back a few days ago from a nice week-long vacation on the island of Maui. Ahhhhh… sun, sand, surf. No phone, no internet, no email, no schedule. Actually there was a schedule – Juliette’s schedule of waking, feeding, playing, changing, napping, eating, screaming, demanding, walking, terrorizing, exploring, charming, traumatizing and drooling.

Juliette seems to have a knack for teething when we go away – this time her upper canines are pushing out. So far they’re still under the gums but very distinct tooth-shapes are showing along her jaw and some days there are white lines on the gums where the teeth are. This must be very painful for her as she’s been crying a lot lately, often for what seems to be no reason. It is especially bad in the evenings when she wakes in the night. Baby Tylenol has been helping – or so we think. Hard to tell really.

During the week Juliette was the main star. She loved the beach, playing in the sand. Of course she tried to taste it and anything else that was in the sand… including a nice large hard chunk of coral, which we discovered chipped one of her teeth after we grabbed it from her. Bad Parenting Award #27.

She was pretty happy to splash and be held by me as I lowered myself into the water. That changed a couple days later at a different beach when a big rogue wave smashed into us and splashed all over her head. That beach was a bit rough with pretty strong surf so the combination of the noise and power of the water gave her a fright.

And of course she absolutely loved the townhouse we were staying in – lots of space to play and explore, and all sorts of new things which we don’t have at home. I felt a lot like a sheep dog herding her away from dangerous things (like the stairway which she climbed up and then fell down backwards when I turned my back for 15 seconds – Bad Parenting Award #31).

For whatever reason she didn’t sleep well there, waking up at least 4 times per night. Or should I say screaming at the top of her lungs 4-6 times per night, about an hour apart. Unconsolable except for Mommy’s Magic Nipples which seemed to solve everything – for an hour.

So now I find myself back home and at work needing a vacation to recover from my little holiday. And as I’m dead-tired that’s it for now.

Wow. I came home from work yesterday to find Juliette and Becoming-A-Mom in the living room. Juliette was pulling herself up from sitting position to standing using Becoming-A-Mom’s legs  to help. Then – the new thing – she stood up and lifted both hands free and clear of Becoming-A-Mom’s legs, standing on her own with her hands up in the air. A few seconds of huge smiles and increasing wavering, then she dropped her hands back down to steady and balance herself. She let out a stream of little chuckles and laughs of excitement.

She was so pleased and excited that she tried to wiggle and jump, losing her balance and landing on her bum on the floor. After flapping her arms in the air and clapping her hands together a couple of times, she did it again.

So she’s still not crawling on all fours and she’s not walking on her own, but for the first time she’s able to pull her self standing and then balance on her own two feet without additional support for a few seconds.

It looks like she may end up walking in a few weeks. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not!