Six Months In – So Far, So Good

(Copyright 2008 by Valentine J. Brkich. First printed in the May 2008 edition of The Point magazine, Wexford, Pa.)

Some companies put you on a six-month probationary period when they hire you, just to make sure you’re the right person for the job. Recently, my wife and I hit the six-month mark as first-time parents. It’s been a real challenge at times, but I think we’ve passed the test, thus far.

I thought it would be interesting to look back and review the changes that have occurred – both with my wife and me, and also our baby – over the last half year. So here it is...my official parenthood six-month report.

First, let’s review my daughter’s progress:

• In her first six months of life, she’s nearly doubled her weight. They tell me this is a good thing; I just hope, for her sake, that this trend doesn’t continue for the rest of her life.
• She also has less hair now than she did when she was born, with hardly anything on the sides and the bulk of it being on the top of her head. She sort of looks like George McFly from Back to the Future. A cute George McFly, that is.
• She now sleeps through the night consistently, unlike the first few months when a two-hour stretch was a treat. My wife and I refer to that time as “The Zombie Days.”
• Now that she’s eating rice cereal and other baby foods, my daughter’s bowel movements have taken a sudden turn for the worse. Of course, we knew this was inevitable; but I guess you’re never really ready for it.
• And finally, my daughter can now hold her head up under her own power and, with every passing day, looks less and less like a bobble-head.

Now let’s review the changes in Mommy and Daddy over the past six months:

• We no longer go running to the nursery at the slightest noise or cry; now, we just turn off the baby monitor. We get more sleep that way.
• Now, when I hold my daughter, I no longer feel incredibly nervous like I’m holding a priceless vase from the Ming Dynasty.
• It now takes me less than 30 seconds to change a diaper as opposed to 5–10 minutes. I could be a member of the NASCAR diaper-changing pit crew.
• Our sleeping time has increased and, consequently, our brains are almost fully functional again, which is nice.
• I, personally, have overcome my fear of bodily fluids.
• And finally, I’ve given up on having a clean house ever again. It’s just not going to happen.

So, there you have it – my official parenthood six-month report. I’d give us a B+ grade so far, with an A for effort. I’ve heard that things get a little more interesting once the baby begins to move on her own. If that’s the case, I have a feeling that my 12-month report may be a tad more chaotic.

Valentine J. Brkich is a freelance writer and a rookie daddy. If you have any comments or words of wisdom for him, e-mail him at val@brkichwriting.com.

Welcome Changes

(Copyright 2008 by Valentine J. Brkich. First printed in the April edition of The Point magazine, Wexford, Pa.)

Recently, my baby daughter began speaking. I think her exact words were “Bwha, bwha, bwha, bwha…spppppppufffffffff,” with plenty of spit bubbles included. It’s not exactly the Gettysburg Address, but if you ask me, it’s pretty impressive for someone who’s never even heard of the alphabet.

I try to communicate with her by imitating her unique language, but she usually just stares back at me with that do-I-know-you look on her face. Plus, I can never really get the spit bubbles right. It’s funny, I’m never embarrassed about how I sound when I’m “talking” with my baby in her strange infant tongue. Strangers can be watching and I’ll still babble incoherently and make faces that only a 4th-grader can truly appreciate. But that’s what happens when you become a parent; you lose every last ounce of self-respect.

It’s amazing how much you really do change when you become a parent.

For example, often when I’m changing my baby’s diaper, she’ll pee on my hands. In years past, if anyone would’ve peed on my hands, I would’ve sprinted to the nearest sink and scrubbed them raw. Now, they get peed on all the time and, amazingly, it doesn’t bother me. That is, as long as it’s my daughter who’s doing the peeing.

Lately, we discovered that we can make our baby smile just by looking at her and going “buh, buh, buh, buh, buh.” Don’t ask me how we figured this out. Now we’re constantly buh-buh-buh-ing wherever we go, and we couldn’t care less who sees us. In other words, we’ve completely lost our minds.

Becoming a father has changed me in some positive ways, too. For one, I’m much more patient than I used to be.

For instance, when the baby wakes up and realizes she’s lost her pacifier or “binky” (technical term), she does what she does best: she cries. And so, either I or my wife (usually my wife) will get out of bed, stumble to the nursery and re-insert said binky into the baby’s mouth. Sometimes this does the trick. Sometimes, however, after just a few seconds, she spits out the binky again, which in turn triggers the crying. Then, it’s my turn to “zombie walk” to the nursery and re-insert the binky. This cycle continues until either the baby falls asleep or until her crying escalates to blood-curdling screaming.

Normally, if you asked me to get up over and over to do the same thing again and again, I would simply scoff at your request and return to my precious slumber. But as a parent, either you get up over and over to replace the binky or, instead of getting a few hours’ sleep, you get zilch. I’ve suggested using duct-tape to keep the binky from falling out of the baby’s mouth. My wife, of course, is against it. What is it with women and duct-tape anyways?

Yes, when you become a parent, change is inevitable. You just have to learn to bend and not break, as they say. Or as my daughter says, “Bwha, bwha…spppppppufffffffff.”

5,438,601 Brain Cells Were Killed Writing This Article

(Copyright 2007 by Valentine J. Brkich. First printed in the March edition of The Point magazine, Wexford, Pa.)

Ever since my daughter was born, and even before, I’ve been bombarded with statistics about diapers.

For example, did you know that the average baby goes through 10 to 12 diapers each day? That’s around 75 diapers a week, which adds up to just around three million diapers a year! (Note: These numbers may be slightly inaccurate.) And, since each diaper costs on average 25¢, that means we have to adjust our family budget to account for an extra $2.5 billion dollars a year we’ll be spending just to keep our baby from making a doodie on the carpet! (Again, these are just ballpark figures, but you get the point.)

All this got me thinking about statistics in general and how our society is obsessed with them. Think about how much time is wasted on useless statistics. From baseball, to advertising, to politics, so many things are dependent upon statistics. What’s funny is that most stats can’t ever really be proven. They’re just myths like the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot or Dick Cheney.

Take the diaper stats I just gave you. How do you know if they’re even accurate? Heck, I could’ve just made them up in order to reach my required word count, not that I would ever fill an article with falsehoods just to fill space.

Miscellaneous Unrelated Statistic: Did you know that Oprah’s legion of devoted housewives outnumbers all the sands on all the beaches of the world? Amazing but true!

Maybe in the infinity of the Afterlife, we’ll be able to access any statistic instantly on anything I’ve ever wanted to know. How great would that be!

For example, remember when your mother would say: “How many times have I told you to chew with your mouth closed?” She would probably say that the number is somewhere in the thousands. In the afterlife, however, all you’ll have to do is search the Afterlife Statistic Index under “Mother Directives” and you’ll find the real answer (79).

My daughter is already five months old, but I wish I would’ve noted every time we’ve changed her diaper. Think of how useful this information could be down the road during her teenage years!

“How dare you talk to me like that after all I’ve done for you? Do you have any idea how many times I changed your dirty diaper when you were a baby? Here…look...on March 21, 2008…it says I changed your diaper exactly 13 times in one day—13 times!”

Now that would be a useful statistic.

A Baby Changes Everything

Copyright 2007 by Valentine J. Brkich (First printed in the Nov. 2007 edition of The Point Magazine, Wexford, PA)

Whenever you have a baby you are suddenly bombarded with advice from other parents. They all want to tell you exactly what you can expect and how you should deal with things as they happen. Apparently all you have to do to become an expert on child rearing is to have a child.

There’s one particular piece of “advice” that you receive so much during the first few weeks that it’s enough to make you sick: “A baby changes everything.” This phrase comes at you from every direction. You can’t avoid it. Other parents seem fiendishly happy to impart this sage advice on you, as if they’re the first to break it to you that you having a baby may change your life a little. Thanks for the info.

What’s funny to me is how each parent that tells you this seems to think that they’re dropping some sort of information bombshell on you. They assume you have no clue that introducing a tiny, fragile, 100-percent dependent, 24-hour-a-day crying and pooping machine into your life just may put a slight damper on your carefree, do-whatever-you-want-when-you-want, self-indulgent lifestyle.

Honestly, I’m not sure if everything changes when you have a baby, but there are certainly a lot of things that do.

One of the more notable changes, at least in my house, has been with my ability to move around freely. Before the baby, I’d stomp around my house whenever and wherever I wanted without ever thinking about the sound of my steps or the floorboards creaking. Now, however, I can tell you exactly where every creaky floorboard is and what path you must take to avoid it.

You see, when you have a baby and you somehow manage to get it to fall asleep, it’s like a magic trick. Once you’ve accomplished this incredible feat, you’ll do anything to keep that baby asleep for as long as possible just so you can get a few things done. If this means tiptoeing through your house as if it were a minefield, so be it.

With my creaky hardwood floors, I’ve had to learn how to move around my house with the skill of an Indian hunter. If I have to get passed my baby while she’s napping in her crib, I must become like a ninja and move silently. One misstep and she could wake up, effectively ending another brief moment of freedom.

A couple times after putting her down for a nap I’ve actually crawled out of the living room like a Special Forces commando, hugging the ground, lest she catch a glimpse of me and suddenly realize that the nap was my idea and not hers.

Of course, this is just one of the many changes you experience with a baby in the house. I refuse, however, to be like everyone else and say that “everything changes.” Once you become comfortable being a parent and your baby develops a sleeping schedule, your life returns somewhat back to normal. That is, as long as “normal” to you is rushing around like a crazy person to get everything accomplished in a short period of time, while tip-toeing around your own house like a cat burglar.

Valentine Brkich is a freelance writer and now a master ninja. Check out his website today at www.BrkichWriting.com.

Great Sleeps of the Past

Copyright 2007 by Valentine J. Brkich (First printed in the Nov. 2007 edition of The Point Magazine, Wexford, PA)

Some people fantasize about hitting it rich. Others fantasize about being famous or falling in love or going on a trip to some exotic, far-off destination. I fantasize about sleeping—long, uninterrupted, sleeping-for-more-than-two-hours-in-a-row sleeping.

Since my daughter was born in September, the longest I’ve slept in one continuous stretch is two and a half, maybe three hours, max. Sometimes it’s even less than that. Have you ever tried to function on two hours’ sleep? Your brain knows it needs more sleep to function and, therefore, it rebels against you. This can make it difficult to perform even the simplest of tasks like dressing yourself or remembering your wife’s name.

Recently I’ve found myself remembering “great sleeps” of my past. I didn’t even know it was possible to recall a particular “sleep” before my baby was born. Now these vivid memories of splendid slumber are coming back to me in waves. It’s like I was in some accident and suffered Great Sleeps Amnesia (GSA), only to recall these memorable siestas many years later.

For example, the other night I was rocking my daughter while watching TV when something sparked an old childhood memory. One time when I was at my friend Donnie’s house during the winter we were supposed to sleep on the pullout couch in the living room. It was chilly that night, however, and we decided it would be much more comfortable to sleep in the heated twin waterbeds up in his bedroom.

So we went upstairs and kicked his little brother out of his own bed, sending him to sleep on the floor in his sister’s room (sorry Tim). We then enjoyed a blissful night’s sleep, each one of us snug in the comfort of our very own heated waterbed.

That was twenty-some years ago and I had never really given much thought to it since. But this is the kind of stuff you daydream about when you’re a new parent—prolonged, satisfying, uninterrupted slumber. As I sat there holding my daughter the other night, I could almost feel the comforting warmth of that waterbed and it made me smile.

I was suddenly brought back to reality, however, as my daughter projectile-vomited in my eye.

My older sister has two kids—one four years old, the other almost two. As she held my daughter for the first time, she said she didn’t remember her kids ever being “so tiny.” It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard a parent say this. The reason you don’t remember your kids ever being “so tiny” is because, due to sleep deprivation, your brain was only functioning at maybe 25-percent capacity at the time and your long-term memory was temporarily shut down. Basically, you were a zombie.

I’d love to share more “great sleeps” stories with you; however, my daughter just dozed off and they say that when your baby sleeps, you should try to catch a few winks yourself. So if you’ll excuse me, I must take advantage of this brief respite to…Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Welcome to Fatherhood — Beware of the Purple Slime

Copyright 2007 by Valentine J. Brkich (First printed in the Oct. 2007 edition of The Point Magazine, Wexford, PA)

Nothing can prepare you for childbirth. No birthing book, no birthing class, no birthing veteran can accurately depict the chaos you will encounter when your female counterpart finally goes into labor. Believe me; I’m speaking from experience.

For months now my wife and I have been making preparations for the arrival of our first child. We’ve read all the best books on pregnancy and delivery, especially those focusing on natural childbirth. We’ve been exercising and watching videos and listening to experts and practicing relaxation techniques, all so that when the moment finally arrived we’d be ready for anything. How naïve of us.

My wife went into labor at 1:30 a.m. on September 20—her actual due date. This, of course, took us by surprise because nobody actually gives birth on their due date. At first, since her contractions were mild, she allowed me to continue to sleep so that I could save up my energy. You see, I was the “coach,” and it would be my job to support her throughout the whole process. We would soon discover, however, that my coaching skills would amount to diddly-squat once the real contractions began. Then I would change from coach to horrified spectator.

By 6:30 a.m. the contractions had become much stronger and closer together, so we packed up the Sorento and took off for the hospital. At this time my wife was in major discomfort, but nothing she couldn’t handle. This was going to be a piece of cake. After all, we had read a lot of books.

By 8:00 a.m. my wife was 6-7 cm dilated and progressing rapidly. Apparently we had purchased the Express Delivery Package. This is when the contractions ceased being mildly uncomfortable and suddenly became excruciating. I could tell this by my wife’s bone-crushing grasp of my hand, her bloodcurdling screams and the fact that her eyeballs were now protruding from their sockets. For a moment I questioned the decision not to use drugs. But then I decided to just tough it out.

By 9:00 a.m. my wife was fully dilated, i.e., she wanted me dead. It was at this time when I sensed she was ready to push. I knew this because I had read a lot about the delivery process, and also because she kept screaming, “I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO PUSH!” Moments later the doctor entered the room, looked down at my wife, and in a very nonchalant way said, “Oh look, there’s the head.” Two pushes later and my daughter’s head—all purple and slimy—popped out into the world. Fortunately her body followed shortly thereafter.

It was the most frightening, exhausting, confusing and amazing experience of my life. I imagine it was somewhat taxing on my wife as well. Finally, after months and months of waiting, here was our new baby daughter, Antonella. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, purple slime and all.

Now we enter the new and exciting world of parenthood—a world of poopie diapers, disappearing binkies and long, sleepless nights. Some would say the hard part is just beginning. I’m not worried, however. Remember, I’ve read a lot of books.

Life on 24-Hour Baby Watch

Copyright 2007 by Valentine J. Brkich (First printed in the Sept. 2007 edition of The Point Magazine, Wexford, PA)

We’re in the final days now. My wife and I have made it through 38 long weeks of pregnancy, and they tell me it can happen any time now. It’s nerve-racking, to say the least. It’s like I’m an inmate on Baby Row, and there’s no chance the governor will call to commute my sentence. I have nothing to do now but sit and wait for the inevitable.

Over the past few weeks my wife and I have been making all the necessary preparations for our new roommate. I’ve been putting the finishing touches on the nursery; she’s been putting together our Hospital Supply Kit, which is comprised of a suitcase filled with clothing and toiletries, a backpack filled with various games and reading materials, and a small cooler to be packed with ice chips and energy drinks. All of these have been strategically placed in the living room where they can be picked up and loaded into the car in a minute’s notice. It’s kind of like we’re packing for vacation, only this time we’ll be bringing back a brand new human being instead of a box of saltwater taffy.

Over the past several weeks we’ve also been attending a weekly labor and delivery class so that we’ll know what to expect when the time comes. This is where I saw my first labor video. If you’ve never had the pleasure, let me just say that nothing can prepare you for this. The hardest part is sitting there with the teacher and the other couple while you pretend like what you’re watching is no big deal. On the outside I tried to appear calm yet awestruck; on the inside, however, I was having the same reaction that I had the first time I watched the movie “Aliens.” Fortunately it was a baby that emerged from the pregnant woman and not some bloodthirsty space creature with razor-sharp teeth and acid for blood.

Throughout this time of preparation we’ve been gathering dozens of baby-related gifts from our friends and relatives. Our house is now an obstacle course of car seats, bassinets, diapers, baby toys, baby clothes and other random piles of baby-related, Chinese-made, hopefully-not-lead-based-painted items. Right now as I’m sitting in my office, I’m looking at a Diaper Champ™, a Bumbo™ (whatever the heck that is) and a portable stroller called an “umbrella chair,” which, strangely enough, provides no protection from the rain. Right before my eyes my office is slowly morphing into a Babies “R” Us.

The next time you hear from me I’ll be a father. (Frightening, isn’t it?) Hopefully, after this life-changing experience, I’ll still manage to hang onto my dry wit and sarcasm, but I’m not making any promises. I’m told that a new baby changes “everything.” And from the looks of my office, I’m starting to believe this. Let’s just hope I don’t confuse my paper shredder for the diaper can. That would be ugly.

Valentine J. Brkich is a freelance writer and soon-to-be daddy. If you have any advice to offer him, he'd be glad to hear it. (And so would his wife.) Drop him a line at Val@BrkichWriting.com.