Two years old

Two years ago today, we became first-time parents to a baby who has become a very high-energy little boy. Since then, I've learned that sometimes parenting is:

- struggling to keep my temper when he is misbehaving at the dinner table...
- comforting a moaning, sick toddler while his vomit runs down my back and leg into a puddle on the carpet...
- lingering at the door of the bedroom and trading "night night" and "love yous" for a while...
- ... all within a span of 2 hours.

It has been quite the roller coaster ride, and the ride has only gotten more wild with Zach's arrival (he turns 3 months tomorrow!). I'd be lying if I said I didn't periodically think back fondly to single and childless days. Still wouldn't trade 'em for the world.

Happy birthday, Duncan.

Tears of Change

He's crying again. Hard. I thought that newborn cries were supposed to be soft and cute, like little mewls. Did we just skip over that stage entirely? Where did this boy get his lungs?

I thought this over for a bit. Tried to put myself into ZJ's tiny little brain, with his gently-yet-wildly flailing limbs (with razor sharp nails) and surprisingly big, luminous eyes that at the moment were scrunched up in mid-wail. What could upset him so?

What made the most sense was that almost four weeks ago, his entire world changed. 

He used to be warm, well fed, and could nap whenever he wanted while inside his mommy. Then after being violently thrust into the outside world, he had to learn to work for his food, air is super dry, clothing is itchy, and poop and pee feel really bad against the skin. 

So I suppose I could understand where his tears (metaphorically, his tear ducts haven't finished developing yet) come from. His life had turned upside down.

---

He's crying again. Hard. And look, now our toddler is rolling on the ground kicking his feet while screaming "No! No! No!" This is really embarrassing. And loud. It seems like any little thing not going his way can set off a tantrum. I guess this is the so-called Terrible Twos. Why do we have to deal with this right now in addition to the other one- oh great, he's woken up his little brother who is joining in the cacophony of wailing.

I thought this over for a bit. Tried to put myself in D's developing toddler brain, with his growing-yet-insufficient-to-communicate-clearly vocabulary and his surprising pot belly (based on pictures, something he inherited from me at the same age) despite not liking to eat that much. What could upset him so?

What made the most sense was that almost four weeks ago, his entire world changed. 

He used to be the center of attention. Not only did he have mommy and daddy tied around his little finger (especially when he called us by name and laid his head down on our shoulder), he was lavishly doted on by grandparents and indulged by aunties and uncles. Now, mommy and daddy look tired, busy, and impatient, and Ah-ma and Ah-gong are spending some of their time holding this impostor. Simultaneously, he can't effectively tell us what he's feeling so it seems like no one understands, no one is listening.

So I suppose I could understand where his tears come from. His life had turned upside down.

---

I'm tearing up. What the heck? I'm a T, not an F! I rarely, if ever, shed tears. Why am I ready to cry just because D threw his arms around me and asked for a hug, something he's done hundreds, if not thousands of times before?

Almost four weeks ago, S's contractions had just normalized and we realized that ZJ was on his way to meet us soon. We were hurriedly gathering up all our bags, cleaning up the house, packing up the car, and trying to shepherd D along to bring him to his grandparents' before we went to the hospital. I was in the midst of helping D gather up his favorite stuffed Curious George, mind whirling at the checklist of everything we needed, when I was suddenly hit like a truck with the realization that things were never going to be the same. 

While D's first year of life was pretty taxing, his second year was mostly a delight as he began developing into a little person that S and I knew how to care for, play with, guide, and love. He reciprocated by letting us experience wonder through his eyes as his curiosity helped him engage the world in bigger and more complex ways. 

This tidy little world of ours was going to change - it wouldn't just be the three of us anymore. And to my great surprise, I was really emotional about it. I don't know if D sensed my change in mood or read my face, but he chose that moment to throw his arms around me. It took a while to regain enough self control to finish gathering everything and getting out to the car. Unsurprisingly, S was in the middle of her own, very different turmoil. 

A few hours later, our lives turned upside down again for the second time in two years.

---

This has not been an easy couple of months in our community. We've seen two friends lose their mothers too early, and we grieve with them. I see the devastation and chaos at the Boston Marathon, and I am cowed at the prospect of raising a family in a world where madmen can take them away from me violently at community gatherings that are supposed to be celebrations. 

The older I get, the more changes that keep happening, the more I realize that when I was young, I thought and trusted that my parents had everything under control and knew what they were doing. Now that I am one - I really don't. And maybe they didn't either. But, through hard work and some measure of grace we turned out ok.

Jesus shed tears before a huge change in his life. He didn't know if his Father had everything under control, if the plan was right. But he moved forward in faith and obedience, and laid down his life on the cross so that God's children could be reconciled to their Father. 

I hope we can teach our boys to be able to be moved to tears by meaningful things, meaningful people, meaningful loss, and then to respond by laying down their lives in love and service for others. 

To follow the example of the first responders who ran towards the explosions in Boston to help. 

To follow the example of their grandparents, who worked so hard to build a life for their parents in a new country. 

To follow the example of Jesus, who taught, healed, wept with, and suffered for others, particularly the weak and poor, and does so even today in the hearts of his people. 

There is no greater love than this.

This means we have to exemplify this for them.

… I don't know how we're going to do this yet. But we'll try.

The Movie Draft - Rom-coms, Tom Hanks, and Child Actors

Inspired by the Blank Jones Movie Draft, over dinner last night, S and I conducted our own "movie draft" while multitasking to keep D fed and occupied. It was kind of fun and makes for some good conversation.

The basic premise is to choose an arbitrary category of movies (as general or specific as you want), then go back and forth picking your favorite movies in that category to get your own personalized lineup for our fictional movie channel. We restricted it to movies that we had seen before, and we also had to go off of memory, forbidding the use of the internet to jog our memories.  This made it more agonizing but also more exciting to try and remember whether there was an important movie that we missed.

We drafted for 3 categories - see what you think of our picks.

Category 1: Romantic comedies, S with first pick
1) S: Pretty Woman
2) B: The Princess Bride
3) S: When Harry Met Sally
4) B: Jerry Maguire
5) S: 10 Things I Hate About You
6) B: Dave
7) S: French Kiss
8) B: Big

Category 2: Tom Hanks movies, B with first pick
1) B: Saving Private Ryan
2) S: Catch Me If You Can
3) B: Apollo 13
4) S: Big
5) B: Cast Away
6) S: Road to Perdition
7) B: Forrest Gump
8) S: The Green Mile

Category 3: Movies with a child (elementary-school age) as a main character, S with first pick
1) S: The Sixth Sense
2) B: The Shining
3) S: E.T.
4) B: Little Miss Sunshine
5) S: The Little Princess
6) B: Home Alone
7) S: Mighty Ducks
8) B: Iron Giant
9) S: Escape from Witch Mountain
10) B: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Another view of our picks - whose channel would you rather watch?

Romantic comedies - S
Pretty Woman, When Harry Met Sally, 10 Things I Hate About You, French Kiss

Romantic comedies - B
The Princess Bride, Jerry Maguire, Dave, Big

Tom Hanks movies - S
Catch Me If You Can, Big, Road to Perdition, The Green Mile

Tom Hanks movies - B
Saving Private Ryan, Apollo 13, Cast Away, Forrest Gump

(we retroactively disqualified the Toy Story movies since he's voice acting in those)

Child movies - S
The Sixth Sense, E.T., The Little Princess, Mighty Ducks, Escape from Witch Mountain

Child movies - B
The Shining, Little Miss Sunshine, Home Alone, Iron Giant, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Traveling lessons learned with our one-year old

A month ago, we went on a 12-day vacation to New York where we spent some time visiting S's brother and ate our way through many of the locations mentioned in the Serious Eats Guide to NYC.

The timing happened to work out such that I had a little bit of a window in a busy season at work (we just finished a milestone), and I still had quite a bit of California paid family leave (which expires after the baby turns 1 year old) remaining.  Plus, after a year of stay-at-home mom-hood, S was raring to get out of the house for a while, so we got some last minute tickets, found a good hotel deal, and packed everything up.

On the good side, we got to spend some quality time with S's brother, ate a lot of good food, got to catch up with old friend Pastor Drew, and got to introduce little D to the City That Never Sleeps.  Our pictorial highlights can be found here and I'll mention a few culinary highlights for the food enthusiasts at the bottom of this post.  But on the flip side, we also went through several painful lessons of traveling with our little boy that I'll document here so that if any other travel newbie parents have a similarly-temperament-ed child to ours, they can learn from our pain.  Of course, every baby is different, so your mileage may vary.

1. Try to do your traveling after the baby is in more solid health (probably after 3 months in most cases) but before baby gets mobile (crawling, walking, etc.). Ever since D gained the ability to move himself around, he cannot be in one place for an extended period of time - he'll go crazy very loudly.  This is why we didn't have problems on our flight to Hawaii to visit S' parents at 5 months, but also why both flying to NYC and back were exercises in frustration trying to keep a squirming baby in our laps while the "Fasten seat belt" sign was on.
2. Avoid redeyes. We've always taken the redeye from SJC to JFK since it's the only direct flight on JetBlue, with all other flights earlier in the day having at least one layover. We figured, D sleeps wonderfully at night, so he shouldn't have any problems, right? Big time wrong.  We got maybe a total of 30 mins sleep on the flight over (meaning 30 mins of sleep the whole night), and were stressed out the entire time because the entire plane is trying to sleep and D was melting down. Right off the bat we already felt like canceling our vacation and going back home.
3. Spend the money to get a hotel room unless you can stay with a friend/family member who has baby items like a crib. In Long Island, we stayed with S's generous brother who housed us for a few days, but it was difficult for D to adjust to sleeping on a camping mat in the living room next to our air mattress, so he was up in the middle of the night every night. Feeding was also difficult without a high chair, so it'd be wise to pack a booster seat or something like that (even though they take a lot of room).  In addition, one other benefit to staying at a hotel is that you don't have to worry as much about cleaning up after yourself.  So to recap, for the first 5 days of the trip, each day (usually in the dark of early morning) it was tempting to call it quits and head back home.
4. If you can afford it, look for a suite rather than a standard hotel room. Since D goes to sleep earlier in the evening, we had several nights where we would get him ready for bed, then S would put him down while I walked out to get us dinner. We could then eat dinner and hang out, converse, watch TV/movies, or whatever else without having to worry about disturbing the little one. Since D has gotten used to sleeping in his own room, we actually found that he slept better if we stayed out of the bedroom entirely and slept on the sofa bed. It made our sleep less comfortable, but he ended up sleeping 12 hours in a stretch.
   Incidentally, if anyone ever vacations to Manhattan with a baby, we highly recommend our hotel - the Affinia Shelburne.  It's not cheap (very little lodging in Manhattan is) but given how much time we spent in the room while on D's schedule, it was awesome. In addition to springing for the suite, the room had a kitchenette w/ microwave so we could reheat leftovers on eat-in nights, and the hotel also provided a crib, high chair, baby bath tub, and humidifier. Very, very baby friendly.
5. Make sure to have a nice, light umbrella stroller and baby carrier for urban settings. We were constantly switching back and forth as we walked around the city, down and up stairs into the subway, so the extra mobility was essential.  The other fun thing was that D started pushing his own stroller as a walker whenever we could find a big open area. It was amusing seeing incoming pedestrians startle as they saw what appeared to be a remote-controlled stroller moving towards them until they passed by to see D earnestly trudging away.

Finally, our five favorite bites from our "food tour" of places around the city (click on the links for photos and descriptions).

     5.  Pork belly buns from Momofuku Ssam and the pork belly sandwich from Num Pang.

     4.  Smoked salmon and pickled herring from Russ and Daughters.

     3.  NYC-style pizza from John's Pizzeria and Neapolitan-style pizza from Motorino.

     2.  Halal Mix Chicken and Gyro over Rice from the Halal Guys - we didn't have very high expectations for this food cart and it was awesome, and just $6. Even though it was enough food for two, we regretted not getting two and eating even more.

     1.  Grilled Scallop with Uni and Uni Porridge from Neta - we got out for one nice meal while S's brother stayed in the hotel with a sleeping D. This Japanese restaurant had two incredibly delicious dishes where uni acted as a flavor enhancer. 

9 parenting thoughts at 9 months (part 1)

Nine months ago this past Sunday, S and I welcomed our little ball of joy (and frustration, and kookiness) into the world and had our lives turned upside down.  Haven't done much musing since 3 months, so here's a list of 9 thoughts on the experience so far (give or take a few memories):

1) They say that with parenting, the days are long and the weeks are short.  As I write this, it is hard to believe that we're 3/4 of the way through his first year.  Yet, there were seemingly countless occasions when he's crying his head off, it's way too early/late, we have no idea what's wrong, and the seconds were crawling by interminably.  To paraphrase Einstein's famous quote, play with a happy baby for an hour and it seems like a minute, hold a wailing baby for a minute and it seems like an hour.  That's relativity.

2) In C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, for those who haven't read it, the premise is that of a veteran devil mentoring a novice devil on how to best trip up, lead astray, and ultimately bring misery to his assigned human.  It's been a while since I read it so I don't remember if this was one of his pieces of "advice", but it is really easy to be tormented by the comparison demon as a parent.  You look at other babies and parents on Facebook or in person, and even though your brain might know that other parents are just putting their best face forward, you almost reflexively compare developmental milestones, eating/sleeping habits, overall health, and inevitably find your own baby (and by proxy your own parenting) lacking in some way.  S and I have had to learn how to encourage each other and guard our thought lives when one or the other of us begins spiraling into irrational envy.

3) Speaking of which, I'm so glad that we're in this parenting thing together in a committed marriage.  The tough times can be so tough that it wears away at your reserves of good nature and grace, which makes it a lot easier to succumb to bickering and fights with each other over even minor things.  We're gradually learning how and when to bring up issues (best not to do after D has been screaming all day) and how to ask and grant forgiveness.

Tim Keller likes to explain the stresses of marriage by using the analogy of a train going over a suspension bridge - the weight of the train reveals any cracks or structural weaknesses in the bridge.  Similarly, getting married and living together reveals the cracks and structural weaknesses in our relationship.  If that's the case, having a baby is like a train going over that bridge while being bombarded with a rockslide and lava from a nearby erupting volcano.  For couples who don't have kids yet - dealing with as many issues as you can before having kids is a wise thing to do.

4) S went away for a weekend with friends at the end of February, so I had D to myself that weekend.  It wasn't too difficult because my parents live nearby and love spending time with him, so I mostly had to handle him nights and mornings.  It did get me thinking, though.

Much respect to the many, many single parents out there who are doing the best they can on their own, because they love their children.  There aren't too many single parents in my social circles, but from stories I've read - for example athletes who grew up poor - many (most?) of them grew up with just 1 parent in the home who sacrificed a lot to make ends meet.  The lucky ones might have a grandparent in the home too.

Given that, it's easy to see how difficult it would be to help your children escape the cycle of poverty from poor, single parent households.  If the parent is out working odd jobs to put food on the table, it probably wouldn't take much for the kid to get involved with the wrong crowd or the wrong scene.

I like to ask D, semi-jokingly but mostly seriously, whether he appreciates how fortunate he is to have both a mom and dad at home.  Again, much respect to the moms or dads who are doing it on their own.

5) They say babies love music.  Babies love repetition.  Therefore, many of his toys repetitively play baby music that is just catchy enough to get stuck in your head the rest of the day, and just juvenile enough to drive me crazy.  For those of you who tend to get music stuck in your head - hope you'll like singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" all day without even knowing it.

This is getting long, so I'll break the second half up into its own post.

10 years ago...

10 years ago today I was perhaps a bit more shocked than the average West Coaster upon seeing the footage of planes flying into NYC and the Pentagon.

The previous summer (2000) I had spent 3 months in NYC on missions with the "Summer in the City" program, living in Queens and partnering with 60+ students from around the country to volunteer at various churches, halfway houses, homeless shelters, and food banks in all the different boroughs.  3 months is a pretty good amount of time for an outsider to feel a bit of a connection to the city - you start to understand the subway system, know where the good local places are to eat, and you gain an appreciation for the diversity of the people, from the well-to-do yet constantly pressured to perform, to the down-and-out in the cycle of poverty.

Since I still felt connected to the city in some ways the year after, I was really hit emotionally the day after the attacks when watching the news and seeing footage from the cameras roaming the streets.  Families mourning the loss of loved ones, neighbors of all walks, religions, and races congregating on street corners to wail, grieve and comfort, and I mourned along with them.  When one camera crew picked up on a street corner fellowship led by a small group of black women singing "Amazing Grace," I broke down in front of the TV for a while.

One day I'll need to teach my son about the impact of 9/11.  I'm not exactly sure yet what I'll say.

2 month memories and reflections

Happy 2 month birthday to our little hobbit!  A quick update on how we're all doing and things we want to remember...

• After a lot of hard work, practice, tears, and pumping/feeding, we were able to successfully begin breastfeeding exclusively a little after the 1 month birthday.  We did run into some complications when we tried to introduce the bottle and it totally screwed up his eating for about a week, which caused a painful blister that Shally needed to heal from, but we're now in a pretty good rhythm.  We're hoping that as he gets bigger and more practiced he won't take quite as long - he takes after his old man in that he can be a glacially slow eater sometimes.  We hope to eventually retry the bottle now that he's more practiced.
• Sleeping is a bit more erratic with breastfeeding since we don't know how much he eats per feed (like when we were finger feeding).  Most nights he wakes up 1-2 times, sleeping 3-5 hours at a time.  During the days he can have some loopy days where he doesn't sleep at all, and then days like today where he's conked out the whole day.  He's also been somewhat fussy the last 2 weeks, not wanting to be put down/left alone in a playpen or chair for more than 15 minutes at a time, which takes up a lot of Shally's sanity.  We'll likely begin doing some sleep training this month, and might move him into his own room in a few weeks.
• A bit over 22 inches and over 11.5 pounds now.  Everyone tells us to treasure him when he's small, and we're already sometimes missing when he was small enough to fit on 1 forearm.  But with the eating, he's been chubbing up nicely, with at least 2 chins and extra folds appearing everywhere on his arms and legs.  Plus people like to comment on the size of his belly, like a tiny Buddha statue.  He also seems to have pretty strong legs and neck already - he likes to be held in a standing position, braced gently around his armpits, so he can take a look around.
• Once he got big enough, we began doing cloth diapers!  We use them at home during our waking hours - when we go out and during night times, we still use disposable because of the convenience and extra absorption factor.  Cloth has actually worked out pretty well - we've gotten the clean/dry cycle down and let the sun take care of any stains.  We did notice that he seems to react more sensitively to wetness in the cloth diapers, so we're hoping that it'll help him potty train when the time comes.
• Personality-wise, thus far, he hasn't been that interested in toys, books, and the like, although he's starting to gain some affinity for the mobile.  He is fascinated by people though.  When we're around or when his grandparents are around, he's constantly watching, observing, and occasionally interacting with us.  When we bring him out in public, he loves people watching - he was entranced by Valley Fair mall.
• In addition, his temperament is rather mercurial - he can go from completely chill and content to screaming loudly in 0.03 seconds.  He doesn't have a medium volume level.  However, he's usually a good-natured baby who only cries for a reason that we have to try to figure out.
• One recent development is that he's begun cooing, most often after a diaper change or his daily bath, perhaps when he's most relaxed.  It's freakin' adorable. We end up cooing right back, and we end up having a "conversation" for a while.  We want to try and record this so that we can look back on it in the future, but we get so caught up that we totally forget to grab the camera.
• After a month and a half of invaluable help, Shally's mom left last week.  We're really grateful for how she eased our transition into parenting life, and Shally's now trying to get used to the isolation of caring for him at home without another adult to talk to while I'm at work. It's true that there's the potential for IM, email, and Facebook to feel somewhat plugged into other people's lives, but it's not quite a substitute for adult conversation.  
• Shally will be bringing D to the BSF young mothers group starting in the upcoming quarter, so that'll be a good chance for him to get out of the house and for her to meet up with some other similar-life-stage folks.  Spiritually, because we've been on his schedule it's been a bit difficult to make time for fellowship and we've been feeling a bit dry in that area, so we're hoping that as he gets older and more able to handle outings that we'll be able to reintegrate into community.
• For me, work has been extremely busy since I joined a new team just before Duncan was born.  There's a lot to learn and a lot to get done, and at the end of each day I get to look forward to coming home to wife and son.  There has been the occasional funk day here and there when my energy level and spirits are drained by the combo of work work and home work, but overall things are pretty great.
• With feeding times, we have been watching quite a bit on Netflix as Duncan eats away.  Some recent and current shows:
• Battlestar Galactica (just started)
• Parks and Rec (just started, any fans out there?)
• Castle - we're big Nathan Fillion fans since his Firefly days, Shally is a fan of CSI-type shows, and this one doesn't have as much of the gruesomeness that turns me off of most CSI-type shows, so it's a nice fit for both of us
• Bizarre Foods
• Man v. Food
• 30 Rock (finished up through season 4)
• On our own time, Shally's also been watching Lie to Me, and finished Bones.  I've been revisiting my childhood with cartoons I loved when I was a lot younger - the X-Men animated series, and Robotech.

That's probably enough for now.  It's a lot of work being parents, but as he begins to move, interact, vocalize, and generally act more like a little person (who's awfully cute), it's making it worth it.

Three-week Newbie Parents FAQ

We've survived the first 3 weeks!  We're super thankful for the help we've received from family in the area, particularly S's mom, who's been living with us since little D's birth.  It really does take a village to raise a child.  We've also been encouraged by the visits, emails, phone calls, and gifts from friends at the hospital and at home.  In lieu of the lack of sleep we're experiencing, here's an FAQ update on how things are going, what's happened the first three weeks of our dear son's life, and how our lives are changing, based on the most frequent questions we've been getting.  I originally intended this to be a short update in the first week, but it ended up being rather long and covering the last 3 weeks.

Labor and Birth

1. 38 hours?!
1. Yup, Shally slogged through 38 hours of contractions before finally giving birth to little Duncan. 
2. The contractions started around 4:30 am early Thursday, 7/7,  and slowly progressed during the day to 4-1-1 (4 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute each, for 1 hour) at about 7 pm, at which point we went to the hospital and found out she hadn't even begun dilating yet.  This was rather despairing because we weren't sure whether the length of the labor would take too much out of Shally to do the natural birth that we had planned.  Being at the hospital was kind of stressful, so after a few more hours we drove back home to try and get some rest.  (This short and unproductive stay ended up costing quite a bit of money anyway).
3. Shally still didn't get any sleep that night, but compared to the previous day when we were trying all the tricks we knew to help progress the contractions (bouncing on an exercise ball, walking, etc.), this time we just relaxed and listened to music.  By the next morning's checkup, to our surprise she was already at 4 cm without our doing anything!  Lesson learned - don't try so hard, the body can tell when you're stressed.  We went straight to the hospital, dealt with the hardest parts of labor without getting an epidural, and welcomed Duncan into our arms in the evening.  By the end, Shally was so ready for it to be all over that when it came time to finally push (which takes, on average, 45 minutes to 2 hours), she got him out in 13 minutes - an unofficial record for the hospital, according to the awesome nursing staff.
2. What was the most memorable part of the labor/birth experience?
1. Well, we won't forget about 38 hours, that's for sure.  But seeing our son being born increased my admiration for and amazement at Shally's toughness and perseverance.  Plus, the first time he opened his eyes, looked at us, and grabbed my finger - that's probably my favorite memory.
3. How'd you get the name?
1. Probably doesn't take a genius to look at our little guy's name and connect the dots to my favorite NBA player of the last 15 years, Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.  However, it was actually Shally who first proposed it as the name.  We were bouncing names off each other by naming off important/influential people from our histories - people we knew, authors, fictional characters (she shot down Aragorn pretty quickly), activists, and the like, and when I started throwing out my favorite athletes, we landed on Duncan as a name we both liked that had personal meaning for me.  An awesome leader, teammate, competitor, and classy guy, he has a pretty good namesake to live up to.
2. That wasn't the only Spurs-related story related to our son, though.  A while ago I explained the team's "pounding the rock" mantra to her and ended up quoting the phrase several times during labor when encouraging her to keep her spirits up - that even when it seemed like nothing productive was happening during the contractions, each one was in fact helping to move him out. 

Home/Family(!) Life

1. What have you learned about Duncan so far?
1. He can be a handful at times, but we love him.
2. He's a great sleeper.  He's already sleeping up to 4-4.5 hours at a stretch, and we've had one night where he's only woken up once.  It seems that he's still been gaining weight at a pretty good rate, so we're not too worried yet about a lower frequency of feeding.
3. On the minus side, when we were trying to wake him up every 3 hours or less to feed, his stubborn desire to continue sleeping sometimes caused us to get frustrated.  We'd try everything - tickling, changing diapers, wet washcloth, even an ice pack - and he'd cry for a bit and then go comatose again.  Strong-willed little fella.
4. He's starting to learn to breastfeed a little bit, but it will still be a while before he can get the majority of his food directly from Mom.  He can also be rather impatient when trying anything and will start to lose his temper when things take too long - getting milk ready, diaper changes, etc.  This has also been a source of frustration at times but we keep reminding ourselves that every child develops differently, and we're already lucky that he sleeps well and had no problems with jaundice or some other common newborn maladies.
5. He's gaining weight at a pretty good rate - in one stretch gained over a pound in 8 days.  Shally wants him cute and chubby and he seems like he wants to oblige.
6. He has really strong lungs and vocal cords.  He can cry pretty loudly - he caused quite a bit of emotional distress to his grandma until we reassured her that it was perfectly normal.
7. During the times when he's really fussy, he has a characteristic way of screaming for a few minutes and then going completely limp.  It makes us question whether the adage that "you can't spoil a newborn" is really accurate, because if it was an older child that was doing that, it would really look like a temper tantrum, and we're tempted to discipline rather than to coddle and soothe.  Still working out the best way to handle things.
2. How have things been going so far?
1. First week: very tough getting used to the grind.
1. We were pretty well prepared for labor and delivery - we took a Bradley course, did research, and knew what to expect.  What we probably should have done was take a course in what to expect after we got home.  As it was, when we got home we ended up needing to reconfigure the house in order to handle the daily routines since we didn't anticipate them beforehand.
2. Biggest lesson: make sure that multiple people know where things are (clothes, diapers and accessories, etc.) so that when one person is resting, the others aren't frantically searching for something while the baby wails in the background.
3. We're trying to breastfeed and it's been quite the ongoing challenge.  As it turns out, his first few attempts looked like feeding but he wasn't in fact getting anything, so the poor little guy ended up starving for the first 3 days of his life until we met with a lactation consultant (a good one is definitely worth the money, taking a breastfeeding class before the birth doesn't really help at all) who told us that until he got bigger, we'd need to pump and feed via syringe and feeding tube.
4. One bright side of the manual feeding is that I've had the chance to participate.  Feeling my son suck sustenance from the tube off my finger has helped remind me tangibly that I have a responsibility to provide feed to this guy for quite a while.
5. While you hear about the lack of sleep involved with parenting, I don't think it really hits you until your first few days when you're lucky if you can get 2-3 hours cumulative over a 24 hr period.  I distinctly remember being woken up from one nap and doubling over in a haze, not being able to move for a few minutes.  I suspect it might be something like what I hear medical school is like - going long periods of time without sleep and then trying to do/remember complex things.
6. Had some recurrence of RSI in my wrists and forearms, last experienced during my startup days.  Fortunately, some massage and strength training has helped reduce that.  We've been learning basic physical forms like keeping our backs/wrists straight and shoulders relaxed to prevent muscle pains.  You need to be quite fit/flexible to be able to do all the squatting, lifting, and everything else!
2. Second week: hitting a rhythm
1. By week 2, we had gotten used to the routine and the mechanics of feeding, burping, diapering, swaddling, etc.  We began getting more sleep just as our bodies adjusted to the smaller amount, so we weren't quite as exhausted all the time.  
2. That said, the pee shield has worked 3/14 times for me so far, just barely above the Mendoza line.
3. This is probably the week when we really started to appreciate his awake and alert times.  When his eyes are open and focusing on you, you really appreciate that this isn't just an eating/pooping/sleeping machine but a real live human being.  Love just looking at him when he's looking back.  I guess it's ironic in that as I understand it, later in the year we'll be sick of him being awake and want him to go to sleep as much as possible.
3. Third week: what's happening??
1. As Duncan hit a few growth spurts, we had some steps forward and steps back.  Steps forward included a good amount of weight gain, longer sleep times and starting to breastfeed a little.  Some steps back included a higher incidence of tantrums and fussiness leading to 2-3 hour long feeding times, cranky baby, and cranky parents.
2. I also began working from home this week after taking the first 2 weeks off.  It's been kind of refreshing personally having a new and different challenge during my days, so I'm hoping to be able to provide some times for Shally and my mom-in-law to be able to get away from childcare and do other things.
3.  Are you learning anything about being parents?
1. The biggest lesson I've been learning is that parenting is super humbling.  As a non-parent, it's easy to look at the research and think, "Oh, these are the best things to do / things we want to do for our kid, so we should do them."  Breastfeed. No TV.  Cloth diapering (which we haven't started yet).  Some parents try potty training or sleep training right off the bat.  Conversely, it could become easy to listen to new parents with a judgmental attitude, like "Why aren't you doing xyz?  All the studies say that... or this is what I've done..."  What actually having a child has shown me is that these choices take a lot of work.  They're not easy, and sometimes, for our own sanity, we need to make tradeoffs on things that we thought were "so important" but become less so once you're facing a screaming child at 4 in the morning on 30 minutes of sleep.
2. I guess the way to sum up the previous point is a lesson I've been learning the past few months.  I read a comment from a parent and social worker who works with orphans and dysfunctional families who said that if parents love their child and do the best they can, they're awesome parents.  What they actually end up doing or accomplishing isn't nearly as important as love and effort.
3. Another area we've been growing is in showing grace towards others and their opinions.  It seems that everyone has an opinion one way or another about everything in childcare, which adds to the stress level when baby is crying and there are many voices "helpfully suggesting" a long list of things, many of which conflict with each other, and making it difficult to determine what Shally and I actually want.  We're learning to show grace in order to tamp down annoyed reactions to simply try and listen to suggestions, then either gratefully try them out or respectfully decline them, all in an effort to learn.

We're looking forward to rejoining "real life" more fully over the next few weeks.  Hopefully we'll see some of you then!

Sometimes you don't know what you want until you lose it

There's an episode of "Friends" in the second half of the series, at Monica and Chandler's wedding, where Rachel thinks she's pregnant but can't bear to find out one way or another because she's not sure if it's something she wants. Phoebe picks up the pregnancy test, and tells her that it's negative. As Rachel comes to grips with it, she realizes that she's grieving something she never had in the first place - until Phoebe tells her that she lied and it's positive. "Now you know how you really feel about it!"

Last summer, Shally tested positive for a child for the first time. At the time, it was more of a pleasant surprise - we had talked about having children, but considering the stories we'd heard from other couples that had taken years to conceive, we didn't think that we'd be able to conceive so soon. While we were excited, I'd confess that on my part at least, there was a little bit of rote-ness in the whole process. In a sense, I felt like it was time for me to become a father, but I didn't necessarily want to become a father - instead, it was just the right time for the next step.

Three weeks after the positive test, we lost the baby to a miscarriage.

It was surprising how much we were crushed emotionally by this.  Even though Beebee - our codename for the child - was only a brief presence in our lives for such a short period of time, it did feel like a death in the family as we grieved.  To be sure, our season of grief and healing was correspondingly shorter than if it was a loved one we had known for a much longer time, but it was no less intense.  We're thankful for the support of the family and friends who prayed for and supported us in that season.

Now that we are entering the third trimester of our current pregnancy (codename: Junior), I realized that if Beebee had managed to stick, we would be hitting our due date around this time.  A few reflections...

1) Most significantly, losing the first pregnancy hammered home the fact that I really do want to become a father.  There's no more feeling of "it's about the right time" - I'm simultaneously thrilled and terrified.

2) There have been few instances where I've felt more helpless and not in control than when the miscarriage was progressing over a day.  We wrestled with anxiety and denial while trying to pray and hope for a miracle that didn't happen.  There was absolutely nothing that we could do.  It has been a continuing test of faith to learn how to trust in God for things that we have no control over.  Interestingly, it has also afforded the opportunity to identify with and encourage some friends in their own situations of helplessness.

3) We are much more appreciative and fully aware of how fortunate we are that it was not difficult for us to conceive again.  We both have several friends and family who had/have tried for years to have children and have been continually frustrated.  Our heart and prayers go out to them.

4) Finally, we understand a little bit more about how a miscarriage can affect prospective parents.  A few years ago, we heard from some friends that they were experiencing one, and it was difficult to empathize at the time.  It is so helpful to have the support of a community in grief and healing, and one reason I wanted to write this in a public space is in the hope that anyone who has to go through the unfortunate experience of a miscarriage - either their own or a loved one's - would know that we can try to help.

There's a daily joy and anticipation that we experience looking forward to Junior's arrival, and for the most part we don't think too often about Beebee anymore.  But she (we arbitrarily decided that she was a she) is part of our lives now, and we do want to remember and mourn her regularly.

2011 NBA Pre-Playoffs Comments

As an early birthday present this year, my wonderful wife is getting us cable TV for the next few months so we (okay, mostly I) can watch the NBA playoffs.  How awesome is she?

And an awesome playoffs these look like they'll be.  After a vastly entertaining regular season with the Decision, Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook taking the next step, the Spurs coming back from the old folks' home, tons of player movement at the trade deadline, and several legit contenders getting on track, I'm really looking forward to the next few rounds of hoops before Junior Lin comes along for his own basketball indoctrination.

Most other people are making their picks NCAA tournament-style for the playoffs, but I'm just going to rank my rooting interests, along with reasons why.  The top few are teams I'll enjoy rooting for on some level, and the last few teams I'll actively be rooting against.

1) Spurs - I just realized I've been a Spurs fan for over 20 years, since David Robinson joined the team in 1989.  I know that they've already got 4 titles, but against all odds I'd like to see Duncan get that 5th against the toughest competition of his postseason career, matching Kobe and putting him firmly in the top 10 players of all time (he's probably borderline right now).

2) Thunder - A byproduct of being a Spurs fan is a soft spot for small market teams who build organizations and teams "the right way", and Spurs alum Sam Presti smartly did that with OKC (albeit with a ton of luck tossed in).  I'm honestly not a huge fan of Westbrook (shoot-first PGs tend to remind me, in a bad way, of the Marbury-Francis-Iverson days of the early 00's) but Durant and the Ibaka-Perkins front line are fun to watch.  As the Spurs further decline, I'll probably pick up OKC as a regular rooting interest over the next decade (since the Warriors aren't going anywhere) to see what they do against Miami and Chicago.

3) and 4) Magic/Mavericks - If my top two can't take it all, I'd like to see some players that I respect win it.  Dallas has Dirk and Kidd, and Orlando will probably lose Dwight Howard in a few years unless they pull off a miracle before he hits free agency.

5) Hornets - Similarly, I'd rather see CP3 stay and build a contender in Louisiana rather than taking his talents elsewhere.  Probably not going to happen this season and a longshot for it to ever happen.

6) Nuggets - A team spurned by its star and with a coach who survived cancer.  How can you not root for an underdog like that?  Not a fan of K-Mart and Birdman though.

7) Blazers - Franchise was hit by horrendously bad luck (Oden, Roy)... would like to see something good happen for them.

8) Bulls - Good young team that plays defense.  I dislike most of the other teams in the Eastern Conference, so I'll often be rooting for Chicago by default.  One reason they aren't higher on this list is because they already have 6 titles.

9) to 13) Everyone else - Don't really care about the other teams that much...

14) Heat - Humility is an important quality to learn.  Really don't want to see them validate their pre-season championship party without going through some failure first.

15) and 16) Lakers and Celtics - Both organizations have n-teen titles and appeal to me as a basketball nerd, but not as a fan.  I'll be honest, I'll root against the Lakers primarily because I'm envious (why can't the Warriors build a team like that?) and I'll root against the Celtics because they have quite a few jerks.