Happy Birthday, Supermom!

Happy birthday and happy 2^nd wedding anniversary to the wife! Yes, I purposely planned our wedding date to coincide with her birthday to make life simpler for me. Only one date to remember and only one present required!

For Jessie’s surprise, I decided to make two scrapbook pages for her and the baby. I find that presents which are handmade and personalized carry more of a meaning than buying some random trinkets at Tiffany’s. Plus, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper.

Back when I was still teaching in the States, a fellow teacher turned author, Tanya Michelle, got me into scrapbooking. I highly recommend buying her book, The President Looks like Me. I’m not sure why pictures of my daughter and I reading our favorite book are not up on the website yet, but I’m confident this problem will be resolved the next time I check. (That was a not-so-subtle hint directed at you, Tanya Michelle.)

Anyway, I like being crafty, so scrapbooking was a good fit for me. I even took some classes and earned a “degree” in scrapbooking. Proud of my achievement, I included this degree as an accomplishment in my job resume, thinking recruiters might be impressed by it, thus giving me a better shot at negotiating a higher salary. Alas, the need for well-educated scrapbookers seems to be few and far between.

Making these scrapbook pages for the wife proved to be a challenge. Obviously, I couldn’t make them at home and I couldn’t run out and buy supplies whenever I felt like it. There was a lot of deception and smoke and mirrors involved in making sure the wife didn’t know what was going on.

While the designs are simplistic in nature, the process and effort to pull this whole thing off will probably never be fully appreciated by the wife. After all, she only gets to see the finished product, not what went into making it.

There was the whole planning and design process. Rough drafts that were made only to be scrapped a few days later. Blisters from doing so much cutting. Trips to the hypermarket next to work during lunch break to buy extra paper, and trips to various stores to find the elusive shadow box. Then there were the countless supplies I purchased only to be returned because they weren’t what I needed. The list goes on and on.

All I’m saying is that I better get some good lovin’ after this!

Got Milk?

Caitlyn’s back to being a finicky eater again. During the night, she will consistently down 120 ml of formula, but during the day, it’s anybody’s guess as to how much she will drink. Sometimes it’s 30, 60, 90 ml, or nothing at all. Dreams of a consistent, 4-hour feeding cycle have been tossed out the window.

Because of her growing concerns over Caitlyn’s reluctance to eat, the wife took her to visit the doctor two weeks ago for a check-up. While she’s now dipped down to the 15^th percentile in terms of weight, the doctor still assures us that she’s developing normally and that every baby has their own eating habit. We’ll see what he says when she gets into negative digits, because that’s where I feel we’re headed if Caitlyn keeps this up.

Around this time, the wife also gave up on breastfeeding. It was more or less a mutual affair. The baby wasn’t showing much interest in her breast milk anymore, and the wife was tired of constantly pumping her breasts only to get a measly 30 ml each time. I’m just happy that I don’t have to constantly wash her breast pumps with all their nooks and crannies.

Without the wife’s breastmilk, we switched strictly to formula for Caitlyn. I was admittedly a bit crestfallen over this because I know there are certain nutritional values in breastmilk that can’t be replicated with formulas. However, about a week ago, Jessie’s mom mentioned a relative who recently had a baby and an overabundance of milk. This person had offered to donate her extra milk for us to use.

I’ve read about milk banks where women can donate their extra milk for other people to use, but never really considered that as an option for us. There’s just something about having our baby drink someone else’s milk that makes me uncomfortable and uneasy. It’s Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, feeding her breastmilk to an unsuspecting couple’s baby. Creepy.

People share things all the time like clothes, but wearing someone else’s shirt is a bit different than wearing underwear that they’ve donated. It’s just a bit too intimate. Likewise, producing milk for your baby to drink is also an intimate affair. But I suppose if you look at it logically, sharing milk is really no different than taking a cow’s milk and drinking it for ourselves.

On Saturday, we got our first package of frozen, expressed milk. There were a total of 24 packets, with about 120 ml of milk in each. I can’t even begin to fathom someone having that much extra milk to spare, but I’m already thinking about how much money we’ll be saving from not having to purchase formula.

I worried about whether or not our baby would take to a stranger’s milk, but my fears were put to rest on Sunday when we tried feeding her the milk for the first time. There were no strange or puzzled looks of surprise from Caitlyn as I thought there might be. She drank a scant 80 ml and then began fussing to stop. Both perfectly normal behaviors for her. Looks like this could work!

Ready to roll!

Looking out the window

 

Stinky face

Blowing bubbles

 

All smiles for daddy!

At the National Taiwan University of Arts

 

Posing with a water buffalo

Taking a rest from carrying Caitlyn

 

Rejuvenated

Soaking in the beautiful weather

Problem Solved

What do you with a stack of diapers that are too small to use or don’t want? That’s a question I’ve pondered about for awhile now. We have two packs of preemie diapers that were given to us that are too small and a pack of diapers my mom bought, but don’t use because the material is too rough.

While the wife was still staying at the postpartum center, we tried to give away the preemie diapers, but no one had a baby small enough to need them. And I’m not going to give people diapers that I don’t even want to use myself. Therefore, we’ve been stuck with 180+ diapers for quite awhile now.

I refuse to throw them away because that would be a waste. I tried looking online for household uses for unused diapers, thinking people might have creative uses for them, but was quite disappointed when I couldn’t find any. People have come up with hundreds of uses for duct tape, but no one can come up with any uses for diapers besides putting them on a baby’s bottom? So sad.

Lately, the wife has been complaining about how the crib bumper doesn’t really protect the baby when she accidentally hits her head against the bars. She’s been wanting to buy a bumper that’s thicker and has more padding, but I’ve balked at the idea because of SIDS.

I specifically bought the crib bumper that we have because it’s breathable. And it’s a good thing I did because our baby loves bunching herself into a corner and pressing her face against the bars when she sleeps. But the problem remained that there still wasn’t much padding to protect the baby.

Finally, it dawned on me that I could use the diapers to wrap around the bars as padding. I wouldn’t even need tape to keep them up because there was already a sticky tab on the diaper to use. Sometimes I surprise even myself with my own brilliance.

After meticulously wrapping each bar with a diaper, I proudly show the wife my creation.

Jessie: What the hell is this?!
Me: I’ve managed to find a use for all our unwanted diapers! You know how you’re always worried about the baby hurting herself whenever she hits the bars? Well, I wrapped each bar with two diapers so that it provides some padding. Nifty, eh?
Jessie: It’s ugly.
Me: What’s more important, fashion or safety?
Jessie: ……
Me: Yea, that’s what I thought. Self high-five! (smack)

No padding = Grumpy baby

Double-stacked diapers = Double the protection

Head against the bars = No problem

Black Swan

Warning: The following post may contain spoilers about the movie, Black Swan. Also, it contains references to erections. More specifically, my erections. If you have any misgivings about either subject, this post might not be for you.

One thing that’s been cut out of our life since having Caitlyn is movies. We haven’t been able to sit down and properly watch a movie because the baby constantly needs to be tended to. Also, when the baby’s sleeping, the volume on the TV is turned down, which means I can’t hear or follow what anyone is saying.

These days, my strategy for watching a movie is reading a detailed synopsis of the movie beforehand. This way, if I need to leave the couch to take care of the baby, I won’t be lost whenever I return because I’ll already know what happened.

I’ll be the first to say that my taste in movies probably isn’t for everyone. Most movies I enjoy watching usually are the straight-to-DVD type or made for TV movies that are so bad that they’re actually enjoyable. This can be a slight annoyance to anyone who watches movies with me.

I remember one time in high school, I really wanted to watch the movie, The Other Sister. It’s a movie about a mentally retarded girl who falls in love. It seemed like a touching story at the time, so I rented it and watched it with my friends, telling them that this would be an amazing movie that they wouldn’t regret. After barely making it through the film, they felt it their civic duty to ban me from ever selecting another movie to watch.

This past Saturday, the wife suggests that we rent a DVD. She assures me that with the baby sleeping more soundly now at night, we can easily make it through a movie without any distractions. Already used to my questionable taste in films, she tells me to get whatever I want, but I tell myself that for once, I should rent a movie she wants to watch. There will be no screening of Steven Segal’s latest flick tonight.

As I make my way through the aisles of videos, I spot the movie, Black Swan. The wife likes Natalie Portman and has wanted to see it, so I knew this would be a safe pick. When I proudly show her what DVD I rented, she commends me on my selection.

If you’re not familiar with the movie, it’s basically about a ballet dancer, Nina (Natalie Portman), who feels her starring role in the ballet, Swan Lake, is being threatened by a newcomer, Lily (Mila Kunis).

In the movie, there are a few sexually graphic scenes. One of them involves Nina and Lily. Being a man, I can’t help but be turned on a bit by the scene. The wife notices and immediately starts laughing and thinking that this is the funniest thing she’s seen in years. In fact, this is probably the most I’ve seen her laugh in quite a long time.

I shrug my shoulders and say it’s a completely natural reaction. There's nothing to be embarrassed about here. In fact, if I didn’t get turned on, she should be worried. What guy wouldn’t be aroused by two hot women going at it? It’s not like I was getting turned on by the muscular men dancing around to classical music in tight leotards.

Now, if I was watching with my parents and got turned on, that would be a rather embarrassing situation. Whenever I used to watch movies with my parents and a sex scene would come up, I couldn’t cover my face or turn away. That would have made things even more awkward, so instead, I’d start reciting the multiplications table in my head. This usually distracted me enough until the scene ended. I always did wonder what my parents were thinking during such scenes. Did they think, “Ohhh….that’s hot!” or were they completely repulsed by it.

With the wife, I didn’t think it mattered. So what if she saw my erection. It’s not like it’s the first time she’s seen it. Well, the wife thought it was a huge deal and kept bringing it up throughout the movie and even after. She said it was so funny that she wanted to start a blog just so she could write about it. It seems, that my erection, not our daughter, is what it takes to compel her to start journaling. And if this is what it takes to make the wife laugh and be happy, so be it.

When we finish watching the movie and head off to bed, I try to reenact the steamy scene with Nina and Lily. But staying true to the character of Nina, the wife is cold and frigid in bed and resists my advances.

In the end, I finally give up. Perhaps she’s just really getting into character, perhaps she’s too tired, or perhaps it’s due to the fact that I haven’t taken a shower for the past 2 days. 4 days, if you want to include Sunday and today. Yes, my personal hygiene has been a bit lacking as of late, but at least I'm doing my part for water conservation.

And my final verdict for Black Swan? A sexually arousing 8.5 out of 10.