Tales From The Dad Side: November 2005

In the middle of September I went to see U2 play for the Vertigo Tour (thanks to my sister). The show was incredible. For those who don't know me well, I have been a huge U2 fan since the mid 80's and have never seen them live before. I really enjoyed myself. The next morning (really) we left for our first family vacation to Vermont. We were going for my friend's wedding, and decided to make a week of it, getting to Stowe and the Trapp Family lodge as well. The munchkin was such a great traveller, and was a hit at the wedding in her silver party dress. We even had tea in the tea room at Trapp... and MTM breastfed the munchkin there too (much to some people's chagrin).

On that note, what is the deal with breastfeeding in the US? I mean, up here in Canada it's not exactly common but it's not as rare as it is down south (relatively speaking Vermont is down south for me). To give concrete examples, if I am at the local mall for more than an hour I am pretty much guaranteed to see someone nursing at a table in the food court or heading to a nursing room at Sears or something. In our week in Vermont, my wife was the only breastfeeder I saw. I don't know; I just found it odd. One woman even went up to MTM in a mall to encourage her... that was a nice gesture, but the fact that she felt the need to encourage her at all tells me something.

But I digress.

So, once we were back from Vermont, things were pretty normal (at least as normal as life can be with an infant). We started out a modified Ferber method after Thanksgiving (Canadian - early October). We started out letting her cry for one minute, then two, then three, and so on. (Ferber's ten minute intervals seemed unnecessarily cruel.) It was really hard, especially for MTM. (Being the non-lactating parent, I was somewhat accustomed to feeling helpless in my daughter's hour of need.) I even developed a small utility in MS Excel that let her schedule her "Mommy visits" and give her a countdown timer to the next one... apparently she would stare at the timer at 2am waiting for the "permission" to go in and reassure the munchkin. After about a week to ten days she was more or less going down without much fanfare. (We did have to take the pacifier away after the first night, as she was spitting it out throughout the night and waking without it. She never seemed to miss it much.) Oh, and just to be complete, we have heard Ferber's psuedo-recant of his method.

Since then, however, the munchkin has resumed waking throughout the night. Most recently, she has been up every hour to two hours. Typically she is waking and is unconsolable without nursing. We have concluded it is likely teething (although the syptoms - wailing, sobbing - are not present during waking hours) and are working with baby-orajel, chamilla, and patience to try and soothe her.

Hmm... she's into a lot more solids now. Her favourite (at least this week) is... meat! Well, turkey to be precise. If it were up to her she'd have meat and cookies (farley's biscuits) - she really is turning into Daddy's Little Girl. :)

Last weekend we had a surprise party for MTM's 30th birthday. I did most of the planning (getting the hall, preparing the menu, plans) months in advance and spent the better part of the final week getting all the stuff and hiding it in the trunk of my car. On Friday I took part of the day, went to the grocery store, and took over my sister's kitchen preparing food. With my sister's help on Saturday morning, the party went "live" at 1pm. The surprise was kept until Friday night, when I had to come up with a plausible excuse to be absent all morning on MTM's birthday... I chose work, although she knew I would sooner quit than miss her big day. She sort of waffled between suspicion and certainty that there was nothing going on until she arrived at the hall and saw familiar cars. Oh well. She was happy with the result, as was I.

Thanks for reading.

You can read a brief history of my blogging if you so choose.

I'm a 35 year old Canadian (which means that I not only place the letter "u" randomly in words, but also that I have free health care) engineer, married to Multi-tasking Mommy (commonly referred to as MTM), with two kids: Munchkin (girl, four and a half years old) and Buddy (boy, eleven months old).

I have a penchant for science fiction (hence the name), but that isn't the focus of my writing. This blog is primarily a personal parenting blog, where I write about my experiences and uncertainties as a father. If you want a concise view of me as a parent, I suggest you read my parenting manifesto.

Rather than go on and on about myself, I'll direct you to some posts that I have written where I talk about me:
Cognosco - a blogger interview meme
Pick The Lies - Results - a "contest" where most statements were true and a few were false
Pick The Lies 2 - Results - another "contest" where most statements were true and a few were false
Quotes - a list of actual quotes said about me

You can also reach me via email: talesfromthedadside [at] gmail [dot] com.

Finally, for a little blog history: The Banners used on this blog since its inception.

TOS: An Update...

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