It\u2019s hard to believe that my newborn son is already more than a month old, but this calls for some reflection on the new stage of life that we have entered\u2014man-to-man parental defense.<\/p>\n
With one month in the books, I\u2019m proud to report that we have thus far largely flourished under these new conditions. I\u2019m knocking on all the wood as I type that sentence, as you never know how a newborn\u2014or a toddler, for that matter\u2014might rapidly evolve in terms of mood swings and sleep habits, but for the past month, we have been OK.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The first month of Charlie\u2019s life was split into several phases: the hospital and the homecoming, Theresa\u2019s parents staying with us for half a week, another week at home by ourselves, and then a week spent in southern Indiana with my in-laws. In some ways, these phases helped break up the monotony of the newborn way of life, especially since Charlie was a bit rough in the sleeping department early on\u2014spending much more time awake than Maddie did when she was first born. <\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Even though we\u2019ve moved into man-to-man territory with two kids, the second time around has been a lot less stressful. When Maddie was a newborn, everything was worrisome. Are we doing this right? Is she eating enough? Why is she crying? We need to make her stop crying!<\/p>\n With Charlie, we\u2019ve been a lot more relaxed. The acts of childcare are done with a more confident purpose, even when Charlie\u2019s cries go from zero to 60 over seemingly trivial annoyances like a wet diaper. We know it\u2019s OK for him to cry. We know what to do to try to get him to stop. We\u2014dare I say it!\u2014know how to take care of a newborn.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t touch on Maddie\u2019s reaction to Charlie in recounting his birth story<\/a>, so it\u2019s worth noting here that she has thus far been an exemplary big sister. I know it\u2019s still early, but so far she\u2019s been better than my wildest dreams. She has kept the clinginess to a reasonable minimum, she has been nothing but gentle and accepting of her new kid brother, and her independence and communication abilities have helped add sanity and levity to offset our experience of Charlie\u2019s constant newborn neediness.<\/p>\n Maddie first met her new sibling on the evening of his birth, when my parents and brothers brought her to the hospital for a visit. I still remember hearing the knock and Maddie yelling “Shar-Shee!” and “Baby!” from behind the hospital room door. I opened it, and she plowed into the room with a determination to find a baby not seen since the Three Wise Men.<\/p>\n As the days progressed, her shock at his presence transformed into an adorable sense of confident ownership. She frequently asks to “Hold-en,” which means that she wants to hold him or sometimes she\u2019ll just opt for the more direct “Take him.” She also declares that she wants to kiss him and then goes in for a gentle kiss on his head.<\/p>\n At one point she was leaning over the side of his rock \u2019n play\u2014no doubt preparing to kiss him again\u2014when his flailing newborn hands happened to touch her on the cheek. She thought this was hilarious and burst out laughing. Chasing that high, she would lean her face closer to his hands and chuckle some more whenever he touched her. A few days later, she attempted to recreate this hilarity, but Charlie wasn\u2019t flailing enough, so she simply grabbed his hand, pulled it to her face, and let out a cackle. This has since become a frequent tradition.<\/p>\n When Charlie is crying, Maddie is usually OK with it, but will start to say in a semi-troubled voice, “Char-ee cry-ing\u2026” If his crying escalates, she will continue saying it, but with increasing urgency, and almost start to sound like she\u2019s about to cry herself. It\u2019s kind of adorable.<\/p>\n When she wakes up in the morning, her first question is “Where\u2019s Char-ee?”If we ever tell her that Charlie is asleep, she quickly corrects us\u2014”No\u2026awake.”<\/p>\n There are baby dolls strewn all over our house in various stages of care. It\u2019s so cool to see her loving maternal instincts kicking in as she follows Theresa\u2019s example. It\u2019s also a heartwarming pleasure to see how much she loves her little brother.<\/p>\n As I mentioned, it\u2019s been a blessing to have one child who can communicate effectively with us. I was home alone with my two kids<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> the other day, and Charlie woke up while Maddie was eating. She was able to remain independent enough to finish eating and entertain herself with her toys while I tried to get Charlie back to sleep. Eventually, I was able to do that, and then Maddie went down for her nap with relative ease. It\u2019s almost as if she can sense when her cooperation is appreciated. There have been only two times in my memory when both of our kids were melting down at the same time, so I\u2019d say that\u2019s a pretty good record for the first month.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s talk about Charlie. We realized pretty early on that he was a very different baby from Maddie. He seemed to have a slight case of colic, which is really hard to watch, as he writhes in pain and cries excessively when you know he\u2019d rather be sleeping<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. On the upside, he also took a pacifier almost instantly and is actually comforted by it\u2014which never worked on Maddie.<\/p>\n He does other normal baby things that Maddie never did as well. It was a magical day when I realized that he would rapidly drift off to sleep when swaddled with a pacifier and enveloped in an audio cocoon of white noise. It\u2019s honestly a drug for this kid. As soon as the noise is turned on, his eyelids get heavy and his blinks get longer, until he can\u2019t resist anymore and drifts off to dreamland. Unfortunately the stomach pains didn’t always let him stay there.<\/p>\n At the suggestion of my sister-in-law, we started using probiotic drops, which have made a world of difference. His daily routine now consists of eating, being awake and pleasant, then getting a little crabby and being rocked to sleep with a pacifier and white noise via smartphone in one of his parents\u2019 arms before we put him in his bed for a three to four-hour nap during the day\u2014and sometimes even longer overnight.<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Since we are exclusively breastfeeding right now and not using bottles much, it\u2019s wonderful for me to be able to rock him to sleep effectively after Theresa is done nursing him. Maddie was never like this\u2014she always nursed to sleep and then required a Mission: Impossible<\/i>-style transfer to her bed\u2014limiting my bedtime contributions to pretty much just changing her diapers. I love having this time with Charlie and letting him fall asleep in my arms. It\u2019s a nice way for me to relax at the end of the day, too!<\/p>\n Charlie is also a lot stronger and bigger than Maddie. While his head seemed smaller than hers when he was born<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, his one-month doctor\u2019s appointment confirmed that he is also in the 90th percentile for baby pates. He also grew 2.75 inches since his birth and just seems<\/i>\u00a0a lot bigger than he was when born. He\u2019s already wearing six-month-old clothes! Maddie didn\u2019t do this until she was six months old\u2026and then stayed that size for a while after that. Charlie will probably be asking to borrow my Cubs shirts soon.<\/p>\n Chuck<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> is also very strong. I noticed this instantly when he was born. One of my first mental images of Maddie as a newborn was when they placed her on Theresa\u2019s chest and she just lay there with wide eyes\u2014taking in the world and drooling. For Charlie, my first mental image is of a similarly wide-eyed baby, but he was taking in the world by already trying to lift his head up and look around. Even the first time I changed him, I realized how strong his arms and legs were. He fights viciously when I attempt to straighten his legs to fasten his diaper, and he engages in an arm wrestling match when I try to change him into a new shirt. Upper body strength and a good head of hair\u2026I guess I donated both of these things to my son instead of keeping them for myself.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n As always, I can\u2019t reiterate the blessing of my employer giving me 12 weeks of parental leave. I was able to stay home for the entire first month of Charlie\u2019s life, and am easing back to work by going in two days per week for June, three days per week for July and four days per week for August.<\/p>\n I\u2019m finding it necessary to forgive myself more frequently for being unable to capture every moment and memory of my children\u2019s lives. I\u2019ve spilled a lot of ink on this post, and there\u2019s still so much more I could write about Charlie\u2019s ongoing efforts to learn how to be a human, Maddie\u2019s ongoing efforts to learn how to deal with a human-in-training, and our ongoing efforts to evolve as parents of two awesome kids.<\/p>\n These are simply magical times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s hard to believe that my newborn son is already more than a month old, but this calls for some reflection on the new stage of life that we have entered\u2014man-to-man parental defense. With one month in the books, I\u2019m proud to report that we have thus far largely flourished under these new conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[24],"tags":[10,4,11,23,5,72,58,2,28,35,49,3,22,112,115],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Charlie](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dadhasablog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180522_144842-225x300.jpg?resize=302%2C410\")
I joked that the first few weeks of Charlie\u2019s life all felt like one long day since he was born, and I\u2019m only half kidding. I definitely had already repressed or forgotten much of the day-to-day experience of Maddie\u2019s newborn life. I think it\u2019s just something that you find the will to live through at the time, and even incremental changes make things seem so much easier. Even though we are still waking up with him a couple times each night, he\u2019s gotten better at going back to sleep quickly, and so it seems like we are already in a completely different stage from where we were just a few weeks ago.<\/p>\nThe Big Sister<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dadhasablog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180505_140457.jpg?resize=1000%2C750\")
<\/p>\n![\"Maddie](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dadhasablog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_0092-200x300.jpg?resize=268%2C364\")
She stared at him with a mixture of shock and admiration\u2014pointing and saying his name over and over again. She also moved her voice up one sweet register and began repeating “Hi, baby!” and “Hi, Char-ee!”<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> as she continued to give him a once over. This refrain remains her standard greeting for him whenever she happens upon him throughout the day.<\/p>\n![\"Maddie](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dadhasablog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180515_190031.jpg?resize=1000%2C750\")
She has taken an even greater interest in her baby dolls than she did before he was born, as now she has a real-life model to imitate. The babies get buckled in Charlie\u2019s car seat, take rides on his Mamaroo, sleep in his rock \u2019n play, endure frequent diaper changes, and get carried around the house while being burped or rocked to sleep.<\/p>\n![\"Charles](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dadhasablog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180605_141459695-225x300.jpg?resize=282%2C368\")
The Kid Brother<\/b><\/h3>\n![\"Dapper](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dadhasablog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_0564-225x300.jpg?resize=270%2C338\")
Another new feature with Charlie is his male anatomy, and the difference between changing the diaper of a male vs. female baby. In nearly two years of diaper changes, Maddie has yet to pee on me. For the first month, Charlie was a sharpshooter from very early on. Even when I would cover his weapon with a wipe or cloth, he would still find a way to douse me\u2014or to create a puddle on the changing table. I no longer need to visit the Bellagio Fountains in Vegas. I\u2019ve seen enough.<\/p>\nThe Joy of Parental Leave<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"Mini](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dadhasablog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180522_144556-252x300.jpg?resize=252%2C300\")
Aside from allowing us to play man-to-man defense on two very young and needy children, it\u2019s also allowed me to have a prolonged front row seat for these early day-to-day moments with Charlie that many fathers simply have to miss. My bonding with Maddie during this time has been just as important as my bonding with Charlie, and the fact that I have been around to take her to the park or the library or the grocery store has surely allowed her to better weather the transition from only child to big sister.<\/p>\n