dvrx

Time warp!

2009-10-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

You know what's crazy? To expect something and still be completely surprised by it when it happens. Kai's first birthday is only four days away! Where did the time go?

Since the last entry almost two months ago, Kai went from having just started to crawl to having taken his first couple steps on his own. From using furniture to pull himself up to standing on his own. From having one tooth to four. He claps at stuff he likes and he gives high-fives. He can blow kisses, dammit! If that's not progress, what is?

It's fascinating watching him interact with the same toys he's had for months in completely new ways. He understands the cause and effect of his musical toys. He puts the rings back on the pole in his stacking toy. He turns the pages of books as I read to him. He can climb the stairs. (Going down? Not so much.)

I love it, because I actually feel like I'm actively participating in his learning and development. For a while there, I didn't feel like anything I did was at all useful. Now I can tell he's actually learning from Barbara and I. He sees what we do and mimics it. He can tell when we react positively to something he does and keeps doing it.

Now, we're counting down the days until his first birthday. I can't believe it. What a strange, strange trip it's been. Has it really been a year already??

His upcoming birthday is totally consuming my thoughts. For the last few weeks, looking at Kai reminds me of the time Barbara and I spent in the hospital leading up to his birth and the days after. I'd never been so terrified or exhausted in my life. I fell in love with Barbara all over again. She's such a great wife, a wonderful mother, an incredibly strong person, and my best friend. I can't imagine how anyone can do this parenthood thing alone, and I have an incredible newfound awe and respect for those, like my sister, who have managed to pull it off -- and pull it off well.

What a month!

2009-09-07T22:58:00.001-07:00

At the end of each month of Kai's life, I think back and say to myself, "Self, that was one crazy month."

Fuck those other months -- this one ruled them ALL!

On Kai's 9-month birthday, he still could not crawl. Two days later and he was army crawling. Less than a week later, he could sit up from a laying-down position. Before I knew it he was pulling himself up to standing -- on my pants, on the furniture, on my fingers.

Now he's a machine. He's unstoppable. He rolls around in his sleep so much that I hear him banging his head against the crib slats. He wakes up crying, and when I go check on him he's either sitting up or standing, holding on to the top rail of the crib.

He hates sitting still. He either wants to be held, or he wants to GO. I can barely change his diaper anymore -- as soon as he's on the changing table he's trying to roll off. He's kicked one of the picture frames that (until recently) was hung above the pad.

He babbles constantly, I can tell he really wants to talk. I swear he does the sign for "daddy" all the time -- but I just don't think he knows what it means. (Still makes a poppa proud though!)

This month was his first time eating yogurt (likes), fresh peaches (likes), and a nice tall can of STFU (doesn't like). He's not walking yet, but I can't imagine him doing anything less that will get me thinking that month will top this past one.

I really gotta put up the baby gates, Kai's getting tired of the Invisible Fence collar.

Cured at last!

2009-08-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

This evening I was standing in line at the pharmacy when I realized something amazing -- I wasn't bobbing the item in my left hand up and down unconsciously.

For the first several months of Kai's life, he spent a lot of time swaddled in his blanket, nestled in the crook of my arm. I would try to sooth him when he was crying by shushing him or singing to him, and always gently bobbed him up and down or rocked him side to side.

I spent so many hours a day doing this that it became an unconscious behavior. I caught myself at a party rocking my plate of hors d'oeuvres. I've spilled drinks. I've gently bobbed watermelons to sleep in the checkout line. I've soothed books at the bookstore. I've rocked my Chihuahua to sleep in my arm. I have, to my embarassment, been caught doing this at work too with various objects in the lab.

Usually I catch myself doing this when I'm in line. It's always when I'm stuck doing something monotonous, where my mind wanders into nothingness. Some dreamless-daydream state brought on by months of unending tiredness.

But tonight was different. It was weird. I distinctly thought that something was wrong -- usually the feeling I have when I first become aware that my arm is moving, but this time it wasn't!

Cured at last!

8 days old

9 months old

Crawling towards insanity

2009-08-04T21:57:00.001-07:00

Kai just turned 9 months old a few days ago, and a couple days after his "birthday" he crawled. He's been on the verge of crawling for well over a month, but every time it looked like he was going to crawl, he sort of flopped over and rolled back and forth instead. It was pretty amazing how accurate his rolling was -- when he spotted something across the room that interested him, he'd almost invariably be able to reach it by rolling and rotating his body.

But now he's crawling! I admit that when I first saw him do it, I couldn't help but just stare at him with the biggest shit-eating grin on my face. I put him down on my bed to undress him for his nightly bath. He was running low on baby wash so I tossed the new bottle on the bed. And then he just sort of crawled until he reached it. I was so proud of him! I thought it was a fluke, so I dragged him a few feet away, and again he crawled until he reached it.

This is just one of many moments in his life where I've simultaneously felt a set of emotions that I previously thought were mutually exclusive. I was thrilled and sad. Relieved and terrified.

Kai's best friend Kingston started crawling at around six months. He was walking before his first birthday. Another friend's baby, just a few weeks older than Kai, had determined the cause and effect that pushing buttons on her entertainer resulted in animal sounds and music being played. Kai has the same entertainer and never was interested in pushing those buttons. I mean, he was interested in the noises when I pushed the buttons, but never figured out that he could do it too.

It's impossible not to compare every little thing about Kai's development to other babies, especially when it seems like those other babies are so much farther along than Kai. I feel this enormous pressure to do everything perfectly -- as if by not reading a story to him one night I've ruined his chances of getting into a good university.

We've been having a lot of fun lately. We go to the beach a lot, I sing to him all the time and every night before bed, and make sure to play with him during the days I'm not at work. I know that every kid develops differently, and that I can't say that his accomplishments are signs of failure or extraordinary achievement.

But what makes it so hard to accept that, on an emotional level, is that I don't think that these are Kai's failures, but my own, and the guilt associated with them are because the consequences of my failures will be much more hard on Kai than on myself.

Is this just the typical parents' dilemma, or am I just crazy?

Fathers Day!

2009-06-23T12:03:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, I celebrated my first Fathers Day. I woke up early and headed down to La Jolla Shores with Herb to go diving. It was the first time I successfully used my camera without the lens completely fogging up underwater, so we shot some really horrible amateur video. Unfortunately, the battery died after the first dive and we didn't get any good footage from the second one. Thankfully, Herbie is a video editing magician and put together this short movie from the raw footage.

After diving, I went home to meet up with Barbara. She gave me the most awesome gift I've ever gotten from anyone (except the SCUBA equipment package she bought me for Valentine's day last year): A gift certificate for a tandem hang glider ride at the Torrey Pines Gliderport! I can't wait to go.

We drove down to Coronado and had a great lunch at Tent City in Coronado. We drove around the beach looking at some dream houses before heading back up to Herbie and Marjeri's for dinner.

All in all, it was a great Fathers Day. The only thing that can possibly top it is knowing that in a few more years, I'll hopefully be taking underwater video of Kai, too.

Unsolicited Advice for Friends & Family of New Parents

2009-05-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

Continuing on the theme of my last post, I'd like to offer advice to the friends and family of someone with a new baby, or who is expecting.

The first day with a new baby is one of the most exhausting and difficult days I've ever lived through. The new parents are exhausted from getting almost no sleep for at least the last day. Mom is usually in quite a bit of discomfort. Most likely, she'll have had an epidural. In that case, she will have been catheterized. Moms who have had C-sections are starting to recover from a major surgery.

With this in mind, I have some advice friends and family of new parents.

First, though, let me preface this by saying that I was motivated to put this list together because I've made all the mistakes described below when visiting other new parents. Some people may be hurt or offended by reading this, but that's not my intention at all. I wish that someone had sent me a list like this before I visited my family and friends when they had their babies, so that I could've avoided imposing on them.

1) Don't show up unannounced. I know you want to see the baby and to offer your love and congratulations to the new parents. That's great and it means a lot. But there are a LOT of things that new parents have to do in the first 24 hours after having a baby, not the least important of which is to find time to sleep. Mom is in pain, and both parents are feeling exhausted and, frankly, disgusting & dirty. No one wants to be hugged and kissed when you haven't showered in days, feel like you just ran a marathon, and have baby goops leaking out of you. (sorry, that's what's happening under the sheets. Deal with it!)

Plus, a newborn needs to eat once every two hours or so. It takes a while to get the hang of nursing, and initial feedings may take a really long time and be very painful.

Showing up unannounced means that you're either likely to show up when the baby is napping or eating. If napping, mom and dad are most likely trying to sleep too. If eating, mom probably doesn't feel like hosting visitors.

The other problem with showing up unannounced is that you may arrive while other visitors are also in the room, which leads me to...

2) Don't crowd the room. Having a baby is a really overwhelming experience, and having a bunch of people in the room trying to talk to you and look at the baby only adds to the feeling. Somewhat similarly, do not call frequently, or send too many emails or text messages. Most likely, everyone the new mom and dad knows is calling, emailing, and sending text messages. Your messages are all received, but mom and dad simply don't have time to respond to everyone.

3) Don't stay long. Again, mom and dad and baby are now on an exhausting 2-hour schedule. Stopping by means a lot, but patience wears thin quickly when you are in pain and haven't slept in 24 hours.

4) Feel free to bring gifts, but be reasonable. Hospital rooms aren't very big. There's not a lot of room for large flower bouquets and balloons. Hospital rooms are not apartments either -- there isn't a refrigerator or microwave so food is likely to go to waste if it can't be stored at room temperature. Don't bring anything you're not absolutely positive that both parents will enjoy eating.

The best food we were brought was an assortment of fresh fruits. They were healthy, refreshing, and nourishing, and we could snack on them throughout the days we were in the recovery room. The worst food was a big cake. We hadn't had any real meals for a long time, and the last thing we could think about eating was something sweet and covered in icing. Plus, we couldn't store it anywhere since there wasn't any room for it. We had a small bite and the rest went to waste.

Don't feel like you have to bring a gift to the hospital, either. There's nothing wrong with waiting until after the new parents are settled in back at home to bring gifts. Which leads me to...

5) Once mom and dad are at home, offer to do things for them but not to watch the baby. New parents don't really want a break from being with their baby. Even when things are agonizingly difficult after a few weeks, new parents aren't generally willing to trust someone else with watching their newborn. The most useful things you can offer to do for new parents include cleaning their home, doing their laundry, washing dishes, vacuuming, and running to the store. Ask if they have any particular food cravings and bring them those foods.

I guess the best way to summarize everything into a single statement is:

Today is not about you!

It is about the new mom and dad. Everyone wants to be there on Day 1 to show their love and support for the new parents. But the best way to show your love for them is to understand what their needs are. Leave your ego at the door. It doesn't make you the most important friend or family member if you get to the hospital first, or take the most pictures, or stay the longest.

Unsolicited Advice For New Parents

2009-04-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

For anyone that's expecting, just had, or planning to someday have a baby, I offer this advice. After all, what is advice other than a repackaging of one's regrets?

If you're reading this, you obviously know that I've been keeping a rarely-updated blog about my experiences adapting to (and dealing with) fatherhood.

I originally wanted to start writing earlier (even before Kai's birth), but didn't -- and after he was born I was always so busy or so tired that I didn't get around to it.

If you're considering doing something similar, I hope you don't make the same mistake I did. If, like me, you try to write something but the words don't come out right, just get them down anyway and worry about rewriting it later. You'll be glad you did. My son is only six months old and I'm already sad and nostalgic for all the memories that I don't recall without a picture or an old email to create the spark.

For example, this picture makes me sad:

I don't know why, exactly. I think it's because looking at it I'm struck by how big his binky looks in his mouth. He was so tiny, and he's getting so big so fast.

When I spend the day with him, I admit I start thinking that I want him to go to sleep for a while so I can read some blogs, or catch up on my DVR backlog, check Facebook, etc.

But then I look at a picture like this and find myself just staring at it for a while. I think that I should have spent more time holding him, playing with him, reading to him, talking to him, singing to him. I should have taken more pictures. I should have recorded more video. I should have sat by his crib and just watched him as he slept. I should have written more of my experiences and feelings down so that later, I can go back and read what I wrote and remember how I felt, knowing that someday, when he's older, I might share these experiences with him.

And before anyone says "it's never too late!" or "every day is the first day of the rest of your life!" or the infinite other clichés, let me just preemptively say "I know!"

I will try to be better. I will try to keep perspective. But I lament what I've missed.

Death To America...

2009-04-23T22:57:00.001-07:00

...courtesy of the Republican Party.

I've thought for years that the Republican Party and the people who continue to support them are simply bat-shit crazy. The things that the Bush Administration has done to erode our freedom in the name of security would cause any true "small government" Republican/conservative to recoil in horror.

What the Republican party has become is essentially a cult. The things that GOP politicians, pundits, and just regular people I know say to defend their party and the actions of the Bush Administration make no sense whatsoever. Ask any of them if they would want the power they've given President Bush to President Clinton, or Obama, or Hillary, or John Kerry, and they'd shit their pants.

Leave aside the idiocy that is the "tea party movement". Leave aside the idea that global warming is just a "myth". Leave aside the idea that the "free market" solves everything. What has bothered me the most about the Bush Administration and GOP politicians, pundits, and supporters, has been their blind support of dismantling some of the most core foundations of our government.

These Republicans, these so-called "small government conservatives", continue defend the government's claim that it can wiretap, detain, and imprison American citizens -- without getting a warrant, without charging them with a crime, without providing access to legal counsel. Indefinitely.

Think about that. On President Bush's word alone, any American citizen could've been taken to a military detention facility, often outside of our country's borders (Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, or any number of CIA "black site" secret prisons) and held indefinitely.

And this week, President Obama was legally compelled by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to release memos drafted by the Bush Administration's legal team that essentially said that it was legal to torture people.

And what to Republicans say about it? Do they say that it is horrible that our government is now doing the same stuff that led us to bring war crimes charges against the Germans and Japanese for doing to our troops in WWII?

Of course not!

Republicans say that these torture methods are "enhanced interrogation techniques" and that our entire national security depends on our ability to do this. More over, they say that now that these memos are public, that the techniques are "ruined" because our enemies will train to withstand them.

What fucking insanity!

First of all, these interrogation techniques were used by the Chinese and Koreans in order to extract false confessions to use as anti-American propaganda. Torture isn't used to get reliable intelligence. It's used to get useful information for political purposes.

For years, the Bush Administration has told us that the reason we went to Iraq was because our intelligence agencies failed -- they reported links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and that Iraq had WMD.

It has been reported this week that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were disappointed with the intelligence agencies because they did not prove that such a link existed, and that most of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq said that there were no WMD anywhere. In response, the Bush gang authorized increasingly abusive interrogation tactics, with the explicit directive to find evidence that the Saddam-al Qaeda link existed.

In other words, they were looking for a false confession. They were looking for propaganda. They were trying to invent a reason to go to war with Iraq.

And second of all, President Obama had already banned these techniques, so even if they were "ruined" it wouldn't matter since we don't do them anymore anyway.

Remember when people used to protest the Bush Administration or the Iraq war? Remember how the GOP called us "anti-American", or that we "hated the troops", or that we should support the commander-in-chief in a time of war? That protesting the government was treason?

And what now? On Obama's first day, did any of these same assholes live up to their own moronic standards? Or did they publically announce that they wanted our President, our commander-in-chief, to fail? Have you recently heard them talking about wanting Texas to secede from the Union?

Somehow in these lunatics minds, criticizing the invasion and occupation of Iraq is treason, but calling the President a foreign-born socialist fascist terrorist-sympathizer, hoping he fails, and wanting to secede, is patriotic?

The GOP is now distilled to a cliché: The lunatics are running the asylum.

What, you may ask, does any of this have to do with a blog about my parenting experience?

Everything, actually.

My parents were both fairly conservative. My dad is a life-long Republican who never misses an opportunity to tell me that Social Security is the biggest scam in the world. My parents raised us as Greek Orthodox Christians, and my brother and I were altar boys. My sister was in Missionettes, a conservative evangelical Christian (Pentecostal) wannabe version of the Girl Scouts.

But my sister, brother, and I are all pretty liberal. None of us are religious. All of us have basically developed political and religious views that are essentially the opposite of the environment in which we were raised.

My biggest fear is that my son will do the same. I suppose I can tolerate it if my son grows up and wants to believe in some religion or another. I can even tolerate it if my son wants to be a conservative. These, in themselves, are relatively harmless.

But what if he grows up to be the next Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich or Dick Cheney? How can I prevent that? How does someone even become that crazy?

I worry about becoming the kind of father that obsesses so much about protecting my child that I will end up doing more damage than good. Not in the medical or physical sense -- I will not ever dip my kid in antibacterial gel, or scream if he eats some dirt or a worm, or forbid him from climbing a tree or learning to surf or riding a dirt bike.

But I don't want him ever going to church. I don't want him to be around people who make anti-gay or racist comments. I don't want him around people who think that poor people or black people or Mexicans or Muslims are scary or inferior.

Is this the ideological version of putting him in a bubble? If so, what happens when it pops?

Four months of parenting lessons

2009-03-01T23:55:00.001-08:00

Over the last four months, I've learned some pretty important lessons that I'd like to pass along to any of my friends who are having, or thinking about having, kids of their own.

Lesson 1: Don't have kids. Unless your life is so miserable, lonely, and empty that you don't mind giving everything up for your baby.

Lesson 2: The best way to soothe a crying baby is to hand it to your significant other and leave the room. See? Now you can't even hear it crying anymore! (At least, you can't distinguish his cries over those of your significant other.)

Lesson 3: No matter how filthy his diaper disaster may be, don't under any circumstances use the turkey lifters to pick up your baby.

Lesson 4: Babies are cheap! People who say otherwise are not accounting for the money you're no longer spending on:
* Parking
* Cover charge
* Drinks
* Tickets (Sporting event, concert, symphony, opera, speeding)
* Dinners in fancy restaurants

Lesson 5: Every day, you will think to yourself, "It will get better next week".

Lesson 6: Every day, you will think to yourself, "I miss how it was last week".

Lesson 7: You will learn to operate at 50% of your normal state of consciousness. On a good day.

Lesson 8: You will realize just how much better, sweeter, stronger, and smarter your significant other is than you.

Lesson 9: Work becomes where you go to take a vacation from home.

Lesson 10: Your baby is the most beautiful baby that's ever been born. Your baby's laugh is the sweetest sound you've ever heard. Your baby's cry is the most heart-wrenching sound you've ever heard. Your baby taking a monster crap while someone else is holding him is the funniest sound you've ever heard.

Best of times, worst of times...

2009-02-14T22:26:00.000-08:00

Not necessarily in that order!

I had high hopes for this Valentine's day. My plans were to start the day with a nice romantic breakfast with Barbara, and then have some friends over for dinner. Kai decided instead to spend most of last night screaming, so breakfast didn't quite work out as planned. And our friends realized that they had preexisting plans with some family visiting from out-of-town.

So tired, hungry, and cranky, Barbara and I started what looked like our worst Valentine's day together.

We finally made it out of the house at around 10:30. Things started looking up when we discovered it would not rain after all! We found parking immediately on one of the busiest streets in La Jolla, and had a fantastic breakfast. We followed that up with a perfect day at La Jolla Cove, and finished the day by cooking dinner together: mushroom risotto and a chocolate amaretto torte. We sat by the fire with Kai in our arms and Esteban curled by our feet.

As low key as it was, it was one of the best Valentine's days I've had.

Three Months

2009-01-31T01:38:00.000-08:00

Today, my son is three months old. I can't believe how fast the time has gone by, and how much I already have missed out on.

Before Kai was born, I thought I'd be the kind of guy that would take a hundred pictures a day, that would want to go everywhere with my son.

And here I am, three months later, almost to the minute. And yet, my hard drive is not full of pictures. I have yet to take a single video of him. And what really sucks is that I can't shake the feeling that I'm not good enough of a father because of it.

As crass as it might sound, fatherhood is almost like a gym membership. Although I've worked out in the past, anyone that knows me (hell, anyone that sees me from even moderate distances) knows that I could use a little exercise. The closer Barbara's due date came, the more I was motivated to start working out again. I wanted to be a healthy, active father. So I signed up at a local gym, and was really excited about going. I went out and bought some new gym clothes and a padlock, and started thinking about my routines. When would I go? How long would I stay? How would my new workout schedule fit into my normal work routine?

So I went to the gym a few times, and was really pumped up about it. And then, nothing. I reverted to my old habits. I kept making excuses about why I couldn't go: I was busy at work, and couldn't take a long lunch break. I couldn't go after work, because I needed to get home to Barbara. I couldn't wake up early, because I'd be too tired to be productive at work.

And then Kai came along. At first, I was taking pictures of anything he did. And slowly, it stopped. I would find myself looking at him and thinking, "THIS IS SO CUTE! Where's the camera?" And upon realizing the camera was all the way upstairs, I would just shrug off the photo opportunity with similar excuses: I can't leave the baby for a minute to get the camera. It will take too long to get the camera that he won't be doing the same thing when I get back. He'll be just as cute tomorrow as he is right now, and I'll hopefully make sure to bring the camera downstairs by then.

And what's really depressing now, looking back at old (two months ago is OLD???) photos of him, that I barely remember what he looked like as a newborn because of how different he is now.

So wish me luck. I'm going to take more photos. I'm going to shoot some video. And I'm going to take my lazy ass to the gym.

Unless there's something good on TV...

Life and Death and Hope

2009-01-19T23:51:00.001-08:00

There have been very few periods of my life that were filled with such contradicting and competing events and emotions. These past few days have been one of them.

September 11 was really the catalyst for my becoming a political junkie. Since then, I've developed an almost unhealthy addiction to reading news and opinion sources online. Like many liberals, I'd come to the conclusion that George Bush was one of the most blatantly disingenuous politicians in office, that the Administration would be one of the worst in American history, and that the Republican Party was running from it's limited government roots to embrace the worst aspects of religious fanaticism that's at the root of the problems we face in the Middle East.

Needless to say, I've been looking forward to today for a very long time. And now it's here.

This entire weekend, I'd basically been counting down the hours until the inauguration. I was so happy that my son would grow up knowing that Barack Obama was the president, much like (for better or worse) I grew up with Ronald Reagan.

So many of my friends have had babies just within the last 12 months. Kingston, Andrew, Cory Lynn, Cody Wrinn, Ashlyn, Gianna, Sophie, and Samuel. And, of course, Kai.

So much new life in the world, and so much to hope for.

Barbara and I took Kai to the beach for the first time on Saturday. We walked up and down the coast watching the sun slowly set over the cloudless horizon. It was beautiful and I hope I never forget the feeling of contentedness within me. The moment reminded me how much I truly love my wife and son, and how much I'm looking forward to watching him grow old.

We went back to the beach on Sunday to watch the sunset again, this time with family, friends, and a few pizzas. While we were there enjoying each other's company, we were interrupted by flashing lights and screaming sirens. Several lifeguard trucks had sped onto the beach and parked facing the water, with their lights still on. An ambulance pulled up beside them. About 10 or so people paddled out from the beach, looking around. A helicopter showed up a few minutes later, shining it's spotlight into the water. It was an odd feeling -- a mixture of uncomfortableness and guilt -- to sit around enjoying the evening and realizing that someone very likely had just died out in the dark water.

We stayed at the beach, transfixed, hoping against hope that we'd hear the good news that the surfer they were looking for was found, but after a while the search team paddled back to shore, the helicopter flew away, and we packed up our things and headed home.

For some reason, I checked my email before taking a shower that night. Awaiting me was a note informing me that a former colleague of mine had died of a heart attack a few years earlier. He was 30 years old, and left behind a wife and 5-month old son, Samuel.

That short note knocked the wind out of me. Not because Adam and I were very close, but because in the short time we worked together, I knew him to be a good man, a loving husband, and that he would have been a terrific father. He and I probably would have disagreed on almost everything outside of work, but in the office we shared a bond of software, sarcasm, and movie quotes. It was strange to meet someone who at once struck me as so totally opposite and yet so totally similar.

And at 30 years young, he's gone.

And now I'm left with this emotional cocktail of grief, guilt, anger, and awareness of my own mortality... and at the same time of tremendous happiness and excitement and hope and optimism.

Adam has reminded me that there are no small moments in life. I hope that I don't soon forget the lesson, and that I'm around long enough to teach it to Kai.

Stay safe, and if you love someone don't dare forget to tell them so.

So it goes.

2009-01-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

I created this blog over a month ago and have yet to post anything on it. I originally intended to use it as a digital journal. As a new father, I've been overwhelmed with emotions and experiences that I would like to record. Not so much because I want to share them with the world (really, who the hell else is going to read this?) but because I don't want to forget some of the more interesting experiences that I know my brain will block out in an effort to cling to sanity.

But life is busy - Kai obviously consumes a lot of time, it was the holiday season, Betty moved in somewhat unexpectedly, and Barbara and I played host to two last-minute guests from Italy for 10 days. Oh, and we had to throw together a Christmas-eve dinner for 12 people with just a few hours notice!

So it goes.

Which is unfortunate, because a lot of stuff has happened these last two and a half months with the baby, and I already know that trying to write something now about the experiences from then won't feel genuine enough. I've already let go of most of the anger, frustration, resentment, and hopelessness every new parent surely must feel but few admit to.

But now Kai smiles sometimes when you play with him, and I believe it's because he's actually expressing happiness and not just showing a farting facial tick. He's beautiful. He's getting so big. Fat, actually. He always looked skinny to me, but in the last two weeks he looks like he's doubled in girth without growing any taller (er, "longer" in baby terminology).

Here's to looking toward the future.