If you were to ask me what my favorite things are, and said "Being a husband" and "Being a dad" were not allowed, I would tell you three things, in no particular order: Watching baseball, listening to music, and reading (Well, there's another thing. But I'm not going to list that one.)
Let's look at these in order:
Watching Baseball
I still get to do this, to an extent. As you likely know, I am (we are) a Houston Astros fan. One of two that I know in the greater Nashville area. They're so bad, and with moving to the American League West - what I believe is the toughest division in baseball - there was a guy on the radio in Nashville who was an Astros fan, but switched to the Cubs. Which is like deciding to not get burned by hot oil in favor of getting burned with hot wax.
ANYway. We determined that MLB.tv was an unnecessary expense this summer - and most likely an expense that would be left dormant, meaning that I wouldn't necessarily be able to watch the Astros. And since I take each and every one of the Astros' losses (and they are many) personally, it just wouldn't do.
So if there's a "good game" on television, we might watch a few innings. While I can certainly watch the Royals and Twins play a game in September - not that they would be on tv - I don't want to do that to Kami. We haven't watched much baseball this season.
Listening to Music
I do this quite a bit. We have Mog, which is incredible. I don't mind paying $5/month for unlimited streaming music, because I listen at work for 8-10 hours a day (and I have Residual Napster Guilt). This hasn't dropped off. And I can play Emsley our ten favorite albums, which are (and this is tough for me, because 4-10 change on a daily basis):
1) The Pernice Brothers, "Yours, Mine and Ours"
2) Elbow, "The Seldom Seen Kid"
3) U2, "Achtung Baby"
4) The Broken West, "I Can't Go On I'll Go On"
5) Will Hoge, "Blackbird on a Lonely Wire"
6) Gomez, "Bring It On"
7) Josh Rouse, "Nashville"
8) Radiohead, "OK Computer"
9) Wilco, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
10) Rufus Wainwright, "Want One"
Honorable Mentions:
11) Danger Mouse, "The Grey Album" (I have White Love for Jay-Z. One of our biggest regrets is not going to see Jay-Z at Madison Square Garden when we lived in Cooperstown. It would have made for a miserable day at work, getting back to Coop at 5am, but ohsoworthit).
12) Mike Farris, "Salvation in Lights"
Reading
And this is where we stop. Because we're big readers. We absolutely love to read - (Myself? Mainly non-fiction, and the weirder the better.) Let's continue with the pattern of my favorites:
1) Truman Capote, "In Cold Blood"
2) Erik Larson, "Devil in the White City"
3) Jon Krakauer, "Into Thin Air"
4) Nick Hornby, "Fever Pitch" (not the bastardized Jimmy Fallon bullcrap)
5) James L. Swanson, "Manhunt"
Yeah, I like Fiction. Anything by James Lee Burke. The Count of Monte Cristo. But, I love Erik Larson like a brother. I want to be Erik Larson. Perhaps you've heard of him: Isaac's Storm, Thunderstruck, Devil in the White City. Larson takes huge historical events and finds intensely personal experiences that completely sum up that huge event. He writes deeply engaging histories, which is what I ultimately, desperately want to do (I also want to host a bizarre history travel show, for anyone who has any pull with that sort of thing).
The Nashville Library is set up where you can download Kindle Books to your tablet, and I have a crap tablet, which I use to read Cracked.com, check my work email, and read Kindle Books. I'd read a book a week, on average. Sometimes more, but whatever. Erik Larson recently wrote a book called In the Garden of Beasts, about the family of the American ambassador to Germany in 1933 (including his slutty daughter, but that's neither here nor there. Seriously, she banged her way across Berlin like a firecracker). It's fantastic. Yet, I've had to check it out three times, because I can't get through it. Why?
Because there's just not time. I'm pretty sure Kami reads for six minutes a day, now. I could read when I get home from work, but that's when I get Daddy/Emmy Time. I could read when she goes to bed, but that's when I get James/Kami Time ("Daddy/Kami" time sounds weird). So I have two options:
1) Read in the morning. This is an attractive option, but I need time to stretch out my bum right ankle and bum right knee, and I also need two cups of coffee to remember my name. Yet, reading about Nazis is a little heavy at 5am - and I don't want to carry that around when I get Daddy/Emmy Time, after she wakes up (around 6am).
2) Read at night. This is that I've been doing. There's what I call "Dark Mode," which is way more sinister than it sounds, with the white font on black background, and it works great, because Kami falls asleep immediately before waking up three hours later, and every 90 minutes after that to check on Emsley. I sleep like I have a head-trauma.
So I try to read at night. But after nine weeks of having this book, I'm only 27% of the way through it. I make sure that I fall asleep before I turn it off, so this morning I woke up at 12:45am with my head still on my hand - dead asleep, and freezing cold. With a neck cramp.
Get used to it. I'll be reading about Nazis in nine hours. Guaranteed.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Two month review: The least-helpful things people will say when you're pregnant
And so tomorrow Emsley will be, unbelievably, two months old. It's quite hard to believe. I've remarked that Kami and I have been together for almost ten years, and it's the longest we've ever been with someone on a regular basis that we haven't wanted to bite their noses. I've held Emsley every day for hours at a time for two months now. I've had spit-up ("throat milk," as I disgustingly call it) in my beard, poo on my forearm like I'm wearing elbow gloves, and I still go over the speed limit to try to get home as quick as I can to see my girls.
It feels like this whole process started last week, when in fact we've been preparing for Emsley for almost a year now (well, we've been preparing to be parents since the day we got married, but you know what I mean). A lot of people gave us advice - most of it good advice. Still, there were some things we heard that were just not helpful in the slightest. For instance:
"You have no idea the amount of pain you're going to be in"
Multiple people actually offered this little nugget. Of course, they were all referring to Kami - you know how many craps people give about how the dad feels? Zero craps. You know, if I walk around in the middle of the night, there's an 80% chance I'm going to hit something with the side of my knee. The certainty somehow makes it worse - as if I'm trying to be careful, but just can't keep from hurting myself. Glancing the corner of a chair with the outside of your ankle hurts, but it hurts even more when you're moderately sure it's actually going to happen.
Kami has a Spanish Inquisition-level of tolerance for pain. Kami was never under any sort of impression that she'd be able to make it to the YMCA for a spinning class two hours after giving birth. Still, I'm reminded of a line from Friends, where they say, "Is that your nostril? Pardon me while I push a pot roast through it." (Or something along those lines). You know who goes into labor thinking, "I bet this will be a breeze,"? NOBODY.
But the ends justify the means. Yes, it'll be painful, but there will be a beautiful little baby girl at the end of it. Like sliding down a rainbow to a pot of gold, if the rainbow is labor and contractions. But the fact that someone thought it would be ohsohelpful to go out of their way to say, "However much you think you're going to hurt - you might as well slap yourself in the nose with a hammer, because your tiny little squirrel brain can't fathom the pain you're going to feel." It's also incredibly self-serving, as though there's a club at the airport where the preferred guests get to slide a card and have access to orange juice and massages and teddy bears - and Kami just isn't going to be able to get in.
You don't tell someone, "You have no idea the amount of pain you're going to be in," without adding a little, "But I do NANNY NANNY BOO BOO" at the end. I hope they find a dead cockroach in their underwear. At the end of the day.
"You're going to be so tired."
Do I enjoy getting up for 60-90 minutes in the middle of the night for no reason? Absolutely not. I prefer to go to sleep, snap my fingers, and it be 5:30am (which isn't too far from what actually happens). But Emsley is not "no reason." Was I tired in the first few weeks of Emmy's life? Of course. If you're not tired in the first few weeks of having a child, then you need to help more - and I'll tell you that now so your wife doesn't have to, because that will be a shrill, one-sided conversation. And "conversation" indicates that there are two people talking - there won't be. You'll just stand there, holding a bottle, wishing you could somehow crawl into it.
I've talked before about sleep, and not sleeping, when having a baby. But the fact is, you'll be up in the middle of the night. It's just how it goes. But what the heck else are you supposed to do? It's not like your brother-in-law is in the other room crying to wake you up so you can bring him a sandwich. It's not as though you have to help a guy move in the middle of the night. As exhausted as we were the next day, there was something special about those 3am feedings. I'd sit with the tv off (because there is nothing worth watching at 3am - and you can only watch "Quick Pitch" on the MLB Network so many times) and just watch her eat. I'd rather not look back at these early days and say, "I don't really know what happened those first few months, because I couldn't drag my rear end out of bed, but at least I am rested." Of course we're going to be tired.
"Your life is going to change so much."
You mean that the part of our life where only our dogs were dependent on us, and we could run off to a concert, or to Atlanta for the weekend, any time we wanted? That's different now? You. Don't. Say.
Introducing a baby, whom - by the grace of God - we were able to create together has changed our lives, yes. But it has not changed in ways that we could not foresee. We knew we'd stay home more. We knew we'd probably not watch the rest of Band of Brothers while she is awake. We'd take it easy on horror movie binges. We knew we'd, yes, be tired.
Perhaps the only thing I wasn't expecting was how much I could love something that weighs ten pounds. I wasn't expecting how much deeper my love for Kami would grow with Emmy's addition (I didn't know that my love for her could grow deeper). So if that's what they meant, then, okay. I can see that. But no point have I thought, "This kid is great, but I really had my heart set on going to see Josh Rouse..."
So the next time you talk to someone who is pregnant, and their significant other, just remember this list. What should you say? Stay tuned...
It feels like this whole process started last week, when in fact we've been preparing for Emsley for almost a year now (well, we've been preparing to be parents since the day we got married, but you know what I mean). A lot of people gave us advice - most of it good advice. Still, there were some things we heard that were just not helpful in the slightest. For instance:
"You have no idea the amount of pain you're going to be in"
Multiple people actually offered this little nugget. Of course, they were all referring to Kami - you know how many craps people give about how the dad feels? Zero craps. You know, if I walk around in the middle of the night, there's an 80% chance I'm going to hit something with the side of my knee. The certainty somehow makes it worse - as if I'm trying to be careful, but just can't keep from hurting myself. Glancing the corner of a chair with the outside of your ankle hurts, but it hurts even more when you're moderately sure it's actually going to happen.
Kami has a Spanish Inquisition-level of tolerance for pain. Kami was never under any sort of impression that she'd be able to make it to the YMCA for a spinning class two hours after giving birth. Still, I'm reminded of a line from Friends, where they say, "Is that your nostril? Pardon me while I push a pot roast through it." (Or something along those lines). You know who goes into labor thinking, "I bet this will be a breeze,"? NOBODY.
But the ends justify the means. Yes, it'll be painful, but there will be a beautiful little baby girl at the end of it. Like sliding down a rainbow to a pot of gold, if the rainbow is labor and contractions. But the fact that someone thought it would be ohsohelpful to go out of their way to say, "However much you think you're going to hurt - you might as well slap yourself in the nose with a hammer, because your tiny little squirrel brain can't fathom the pain you're going to feel." It's also incredibly self-serving, as though there's a club at the airport where the preferred guests get to slide a card and have access to orange juice and massages and teddy bears - and Kami just isn't going to be able to get in.
You don't tell someone, "You have no idea the amount of pain you're going to be in," without adding a little, "But I do NANNY NANNY BOO BOO" at the end. I hope they find a dead cockroach in their underwear. At the end of the day.
"You're going to be so tired."
Do I enjoy getting up for 60-90 minutes in the middle of the night for no reason? Absolutely not. I prefer to go to sleep, snap my fingers, and it be 5:30am (which isn't too far from what actually happens). But Emsley is not "no reason." Was I tired in the first few weeks of Emmy's life? Of course. If you're not tired in the first few weeks of having a child, then you need to help more - and I'll tell you that now so your wife doesn't have to, because that will be a shrill, one-sided conversation. And "conversation" indicates that there are two people talking - there won't be. You'll just stand there, holding a bottle, wishing you could somehow crawl into it.
I've talked before about sleep, and not sleeping, when having a baby. But the fact is, you'll be up in the middle of the night. It's just how it goes. But what the heck else are you supposed to do? It's not like your brother-in-law is in the other room crying to wake you up so you can bring him a sandwich. It's not as though you have to help a guy move in the middle of the night. As exhausted as we were the next day, there was something special about those 3am feedings. I'd sit with the tv off (because there is nothing worth watching at 3am - and you can only watch "Quick Pitch" on the MLB Network so many times) and just watch her eat. I'd rather not look back at these early days and say, "I don't really know what happened those first few months, because I couldn't drag my rear end out of bed, but at least I am rested." Of course we're going to be tired.
"Your life is going to change so much."
You mean that the part of our life where only our dogs were dependent on us, and we could run off to a concert, or to Atlanta for the weekend, any time we wanted? That's different now? You. Don't. Say.
Introducing a baby, whom - by the grace of God - we were able to create together has changed our lives, yes. But it has not changed in ways that we could not foresee. We knew we'd stay home more. We knew we'd probably not watch the rest of Band of Brothers while she is awake. We'd take it easy on horror movie binges. We knew we'd, yes, be tired.
Perhaps the only thing I wasn't expecting was how much I could love something that weighs ten pounds. I wasn't expecting how much deeper my love for Kami would grow with Emmy's addition (I didn't know that my love for her could grow deeper). So if that's what they meant, then, okay. I can see that. But no point have I thought, "This kid is great, but I really had my heart set on going to see Josh Rouse..."
So the next time you talk to someone who is pregnant, and their significant other, just remember this list. What should you say? Stay tuned...
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