47 Things

Up next on the blog is a list of 47 things separated into 7 lists. For you parents out there, I’m exceedingly hopeful that you will comment with your own ‘Things’ so that we can all reminisce, laugh, or commiserate!

Here we go!

1.3 Milk Coma!

1. Five Adorable Things

1. Tongue thrusts (kinda lizard-like) & rosebud lips.
2. Full-body sneezes and full tongue-out coughs.
3. Milk induced comas (er, I mean serene sleeping).
4. Seeing Alora turn to my voice when entering the room.
5. Alora alert, eyes open, observing the world.
6. Newborn photos! (This is the whole collection rather than the sampling on Meta’s Blog.)

2.2 A brief moment without, er, “food supply management” by our Lactation Consultant, Debi.

2. Two Awkward Things

1. Short umbilical cords
2. Lactation consultants having no personal boundaries with their managing of your wife’s breasts

3. Nine Sucky Things

1. So. Many. Diapers. (And I bet it’ll get worse before it gets better.)
2. Interrupted sleep for all.
3. Underweight kiddos.
4. Kids books (so infantile).
5. So. Many. Clothes. (And the subsequent laundry requirements.)
6. Crying over spilt milk. (Breastmilk is like liquid gold.)
7. Feeding with a bottle, then burping, then changing a diaper, then pumping, then cleaning the pump, then eating and drinking, then sleeping for an hour and a half, then doing the whole spiel again and again… and again.
8. Heather’s headache & exhaustion (continued alignment issues compounded with lack of contiguous hours of sleep).
9. Seemingly unneccesary doctor appointments.

Daddy & Alora.

4. Six Funny Things

1. Trying to dress a newborn for the first time. Pro tip: use oversized button up clothing not the “perfectly” sized, over-the-head onesie.
2. Un-diapered peeing on others. (Thanks, Madi, for taking her first like a seasoned pro!)
3. Involuntary rocking of the baby. My foot will move (as though to move a rocking chair) at the fussing of our child, even if she’s in someone else’s arms.
4. Buying baby diapers, wipes and maxi pads. Zillions of options, and getting knowing looks from other men while you read each package.
5. We may never know the sheer number of photos that one can take of a sleeping baby.
6. The never-to-be-seen-in-public self-fashioned hands-free pumping bra that Heather made. (Imagine a misguided superhero who let her Zorro mask slide to her upper torso. And then, in your mind, mount the breast pump apparatuses through the eye sockets…)

Newborn photos are awesome!

5. Fourteen Awesome Things

1. Seeing Heather handle labor like it was no big deal.
2. Catching Alora (and having a picture of the precise moment).
3. The joy of having a family. There is something palpably different when you add a child to the mix.
4. C says, “watching Heather be a Mom, with the patience of a saint, nerves of steel and maddening endurance.”
5. H says, “watching Cody and Alora interact. Carrying, changing, talking, sleeping, everything.”
6. Laughter about everything.
7. Emotional release when things are hard.
8. The love and support of other people. “If you ever need _anything_, just call!”
9. Ultimate Frisbee players clapping for the new dad.
10. Heather’s mom, Marilyn. She’s here through March 16th as the best live-in support we could ask for.
11. Gifts of Meals. (For those interested, we have a sign-up here.)
12. Learning new things every day.
13. Donated breast milk in a time of need.
14. Her first yellow diaper after lots of meconium.

6.2 Our daughter will be well read. Good habits start young.

6. Four Notable Things

1. Newborn Huggies > Newborn Pampers!
2. Alora’s first book: Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell.
3. Alora’s future vocabulary.
4. The future.

7. Six Quotable Things

1. Heather: “She’s just kinda shifty.” (On Alora starting to wake up.)
2. Shayna: “Babies suck!” (Trying to express the reality that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows as a parent.)
3. Cody: “Our child doesn’t suck.” Heather’s reply: “But we want her to suck.” (On Alora’s feeding challenges.)
4. Caity: “Milk drunk? Daaaamm!” (On Alora falling asleep after a feeding.)
5. Marilyn: “I think she’s got some thunder down under, too.” (On Alora’s rumblings during a feeding.)
6. From the other room we hear Alora squeeze one out: Phhhhbbbbbbbbbttt! Marilyn: “Well, so much for _that_ blanket.”

Tucked in with Alora. (Proof that Cody does sleep.)

Thanks for reading along. I’m looking forward to reading your additions to these lists or to your own!

‘Till next time,
-Cody