A “Tough” Day at Parenting

It is not that we didn’t appreciate our parents enough, we love them nearly and nearly but the sense of appreciation grows with every sleepless nights we spend with Neev. In our case its mostly Vi (“The Mommy”) who is awake to take care of the little night watchman. So “Mr. Internet”, go hug your mom right away. If she’s not nearby, grab the nearest lady to you who looks like she might be a mom, and give her one of those pick-you-up-off-the-floor bear hugs. I don’t care if you know her or not, do it. And do it now. Because chances are, at one point or maybe many points, she’s had a day like we’ve had today. And a hug helps. So does a bouquet of flowers. And, some chocolate.

God …Oh….God !!!

Anyone who dares to say being a stay at home mom isn’t a job should be immediately castrated. It is incredibly hard work. Possibly the hardest, beyond like, conducting a brain surgery or delivering one of those Optus D1 geosynchronous (GEO) communications satellite in the space or for that matter saving the troubled global economy right now. Neev was just…inconsolable today, almost the entire day, and we are just exhausted. We really are !! Vi has learned his cries at this point and have them down to a pitch/frequency/amplitude and resonance (for those overly-occupied who didn’t pay enough attention in school these are terms related to science). But knowing which cry it is doesn’t mean we can stop it. Man did we try. What keeps us from walking away for a few minutes or letting him cry it out in his crib is that as frustrated as weare, We know Neev is just as frustrated if not more, and he truly makes the saddest face in the entire world. His bottom lip quivers, his eyebrows furrow like “why me!?” and he just…cries. So hard that his face gets beet red and there’s no sound between the gasps of air. You know that cry? It’s heart-breaking. We can’t just let him keep making that face, well I can for a little bit but not dear mommy… So she bounce and walk laps around our home, she sing and pull out every trick in the book until something, anything works.

After the worst parts of today, between all the screaming, sad faces and restless naps, we finally got Neev to fall asleep for a little while and started thinking of all our favorite things about him, like the way he folds his hands in his lap while we feed him, or his hot little yawns in our face. They worked wonder.

As hard as today was we know that this newborn phase is temporary, so we try to let days like today roll off our back. I also know that eventually the days will become much more manageable. In the meantime, we have hugs, and we have wine. And all those hot little yawns.

How is parenting Life Treating you ??

Its now almost a ritual for friends and co-workers to check on the parenting life treating us. In simple words Parenthood has no sense of predictability or rationale, sooner you accepts this, better it is for you. Parenthood is incredible, hard, lovely, and totally overwhelming. I liked to plan things out but for now we are slowly dealing with our plan-less plan for what we should be doing with Neev. No book, or friend, or family member, or nurse, or weekly email will tell me how to calm him down or why we can’t get that burp bubble out or what he wants because every baby is unique and something which applies to one might have almost no relevance to other. So the plan is to go with the flow, and slowly crack the code “Neev”. Every night we still get nervous as we get ready for sleep, not knowing when the little chunky-munkey is going to wake up. But it’s getting better. Or, rather, we’re getting used to living our life a little differently. And every time Neev smiles at me or even just focuses on our faces, we feel like world is whole lot better !!!.

Everybody tells you that parenting teaches you a lot and we have our share of lesson the one I learned very recently is an important one “The people who love you the most will inevitably, at some point in your life, shit and piss on you. I’m speaking literally here…by the soft glow of a night light…with a smile on their face. And I’m not talking about Vi”

Here’s the thing, though: it might seem dumb to try to cling on to our former lives, obviously we have to make adjustments, but I don’t think parenthood should bring everything to a screeching halt. Having living this for almost 3 months now I don’t think we could stop it even if we tried. More and more we are finding opportunities to head out, like caged wild animals, Neev in his car seat, bracing for whatever might happen to happen. Life goes on, babies cry and bangs get cut. We’ll get the hang of it sooner or later.

Vi Eligible for NASCAR

As you all know, I work for a company which provides an important component for NASCAR. I follow the races very closely, for obvious reason . I am most fascinated by the act of pit crews who need to change tires, put oil and gas and adjust structure with in 12-14 seconds. They are like a bunch of robots with every move fast and predictable to utmost precision. Put that in context and now watch Vi, she is none less than any of the pit crews the only difference is that she is taking care of a living and breathing baby unlike a car like them.

Deep in the night when the little monkey start rumbling for his next pit stop (I am sorry for his next feeding) from his bed. Momy’s hormones kicks and adrenaline rushes. He’s on his way to waking up and will be ready to eat. it’s a matter of seconds before he breaks out a squeal that can make anybody’s stomach turn. But before that happens Vi acts with a lightening speed..

Step 1: Go downstairs and warm the water.
Step 2: Add formula in the warm water.
Step 3: Add rice cereals in the milk.
Step 4: Take the bottle upstairs

Step 5: Go to bathroom.

Step 6: Prepare the changing area

Step 7: Get diaper and wipes out .
Step 8: Get Neev out of his crib and put him down for a diaper change.
Step 9:.Unhook 100 buttons to finally reveal his diaper, then change it.

Step 10: Clean and change the diaper

Step 11: Snap the 100 buttons (Little monster is on the verge of a meltdown at this point.)
Step 12: Throw the dirty diaper in the disposal

Step 13: Arrange the boppy pillow and put him for feeding

Step 14: Pick up bottle and insert into his mouth.
Sigh. Success. Only a little crying spells she wins again!

I am not at all wrong in comparing her to the pit crews, perhaps she can work for NASCAR once Neev is all grown up !!

Neev in Hospital …

It was Neev’s 2 month check-up and everything looked great except his heavy breathing, which we initially thought was just congestion, is started to bother us. We explained our concerned to the doctor and thankfully he suggested that since this has been going on for our 2 months and we should go to emergency and get him checked. So we headed to the Emergency right from the doctor’s office. We were in emergency at around 6 PM, they did a preliminary check by x-rays etc but nothing showed anything wrong. The doctors then decided to monitor him overnight and conduct more test in the morning. We were assigned a room by 10 PM. What broke our heart was that the little boy would not be able to eat anything until doctor checks him back in the morning. If this was not enough we were also told that he has to be inserted an IV to make sure he is getting the proper nutrients. I was pretty sure mommy would not be able to see piece of her heart getting poked by needles so she stayed back and I took her to a different room to insert the IV. He cried, he cried a lot but I got to tell you, what a brave boy. We came back to the room and he was calm in a little bit…thank to his binky !! Vi decided to stay in the hospital I came back to home at around 11:30 to open my fast.

Next morning 6:30 AM they did a test called Upper-GI where they feed barium sulfate to the baby and take x-ray image continuously. Once the results of upper GI came back the doctors figured that he was having significant acid reflux and that, perhaps, was causing irritation in the throat and hence the heavy breathing. The doctors advised that we mix some rice cereals in his milk to thicken it which should reduce the reflux. The doctors also advised to hold him straight after every feeding for few minutes. After the upper GI he was given milk…he loved it J. They were continuously monitoring his oxygen which was normal also. This was huge that even when he was breathing heavy his oxygen content was OK. We felt so depresses seeing him lying in the hospital crib, after all he is a little kid. He should be laughing, crying and making fuss not lie in a hospital bed …However we were glad that it was nothing serious. We were able to find a cradle in the hospital which made life a lot easier. Vi slept in the hospital that night too and I came home sleep. Next day afternoon we were discharged from the hospital…that was a relief.

Month 2 Done !!

Our little prince is 8 weeks old…Two Months…can you believe it??? Time is flying by and our prince is growing up so fast before our very eyes. We are having a heck of a adventure in parenting and poor Neev is the brunt of our ignorance and eureka moments!

He is seriously growing we were at the the pediatrician last Friday and He is already 9 pounds 11 ounces !!!! That’s a gain of over 3 pounds. He is also approximately 23 inch tall. It is amazing!!! Everything else looked great health wise and yes there were vaccine shots involved but we will talk about it in a separate post. He is doing excellent with his eating and pooping…the only problem right now seems to be the sleeping but he has trained mommy very well by now so she is not complaining!!

He is so cute during his “awake-time”…for the most part he will lie in his cradles seat and stare everything his eyes can catch. He is really fascinated by the center light and does not miss a single opportunity to state at that. Last month he caused a lot of fuss everytime we tried to give him a massage, now he seems to love it. We are surprised by the fact that our little guys can lift and hold his head so steadily. He also seems to know that we like his little movements so he never misses an opportunity to impress us. His staring, his farts, his smile and his crying ..everything is so cute …we love it…

Neev has became the only focal point of our life not too mention our favorite hobby and topic of discussion. Have you ever met those ..yes those who can’t talk about anything else except their kid, the ones we all used to laugh at. I am proud to admit that I am now in that group too…I am sure with this rate people will start to hide if they see me in the hallway. Part of the reason we can’t stop talking because the little monkey seems different every day. As if the God is fine-tuning your looks like he would a radio, trying to get that one perfectly clear frequency to come through. His mood, his schedule and his signals/expression changes every day, and just when we think we cracked the code, he switches it up on us again.

Well things are altering almost daily and I don’t think we can take enough pictures or videos to capture them all. We feel so blessed with such a great baby and we pray that he continues to be happy and healthy. We can’t believe that not before too long Neev will be laughing and smiling at us and soon he will be sitting up and not long after that he will be crawling! Times flies all to fast these days…I am just glad that we are here and able to soak up every moment with our precious baby.

I came across these lines in a book and found it really interesting ..

Men may work from Sun to Sun…But Women’s work is never done

Here is what The Econmist has to say about this

…..Throughout the world, men spend more time on market work, while women spend more time on homework. In the United States and other rich countries, men average 5.2 hours of market work a day and 2.7 hours of homework each day, while women average 3.4 hours of market work and 4.5 hours of homework per day. Adding these up, men work an average of 7.9 hours per day, while women work an average of—drum roll, please—7.9 hours per day. This is the first major finding of the new study. Whatever you may have heard on The View, when these economists accounted for market work and homework, men and women spent about the same amount of time each day working. The averages sound low because they include weekends and are based on a sample of adults that included stay-at-home parents as well as working ones, and other adults.

Does this prove that feminists are wrong to say that women are oppressed by housework? Not necessarily. If men get to have high-powered jobs that women don’t have time for because they’re too busy scrubbing out the soap scum in the bathroom, this seems like it’s still a problem. Moreover, one wonders if there are differences in the way that men and women describe, say, child care: do men regard taking the children to the movies as “babysitting” work, while women regard it as leisure? Still the results can’t automatically be dismissed, and they are surprising even if not as strong as they first appear.

Whoever says whatever ..God Bless My wife Vi’s heart, she works tireless all day with no complains at all. Now you guys know I can be a mess and with a little one on top on that (who is even messier) ..that is hard..that is some real goddamn work !!

Meet Our New Friend

This post is pretty self-explanatory, but for the slow ones please refer to my post of bubble’s sleeping problems !!