Rookie Dad: It's been a year

It was a year ago yesterday when The Youngling finally graced us with her presence. I won't go in to alot of details from that day other than to say that the 22 hours leading up to her birth was, well, lengthy. I don't care to ever sleep in a hospital room recliner again. It's just not as comfortable as you think it would be.

But in the end it was all worth it because we got to see her eat a whole bunch of cake on Sunday. Us and about 20 others, actually. Yes, we broke the big rule that I've seen in parenting newsletters and magazines that says "just have the grandparents there and keep it small, your one year old will be riddled with anxiety and likely cry and crawl in to the corner with a huge crowd around her". Those magazines and newsletters aren't worth the ink or bytes used to create them.

The Youngling showed no signs of anxiety and was totally herself. Right down to refusing to eat anything on a plate. So the cake went directly on the tray of her high chair and she meticulously ate the frosting then got all up in that cake's chocolatey business. The wedge of two-layer cake was eventually smashed in to a gooey mass and she was working on building a coffee grounds-style beard but with cake.

The most impressive fact was that The Youngling kept her hair clean in spite of taunts and encouragement from her aunts to do otherwise. The clean-up was easy, too. Rather than try to clean her with a wash cloth or baby wipes we just gave her a quick bath and got back to the grind of opening her presents. After those hours of excitement she took a three hour nap and we cleaned up cake.

Rookie Dad: She's got her shots

Nobody ever looks forward to shots - unless you truly enjoy pain. I know I don't particularly like shots and I've been know to pass out having blood drawn - I'd make a terrible intravenous drug user. So it's no shock that The Youngling screamed her head off when she got her one year shots earlier this week. I actually did the whole good parent thing and read the information sheet provided for each shot - MMR, Hepatitis A, H1N1 and Chicken Pox.

That's when I was informed that some toddlers get a rash from the MMR shot - it's nothing to worry about and some toddlers have a reaction to the Chicken Pox vaccine a couple weeks out. All in all none of it sounded too bad.

Until the day after the shots when The Youngling was still groggy. One of the shots had caused her to develop a fever which she fought all day long. That particular day ended in a bath to cool her down and a few rounds of infant acetaminophen. She eventually pulled through all of that only to come down with what turned in to a full body rash. It looks like she was wearing carefully applied costume makeup all over her body but I've been reassured that it only lasts a couple days and she'll be back to her normal looking self. Even covered in a rash, The Youngling is still overly huggable and while people were happy to see us parents show up at a couple Thanksgiving shindigs yesterday they were downright overjoyed to see the baby. People cooed and played and crawled with her. Nobody crawled with me or wanted to bounce me on their lap. I'm starting to develop an inferiority complex.

Rookie Dad: Climbing the ranks

The Youngling is getting dangerously close to her first birthday and that means cake, messes and tons of progress that Rookie Dad is totally unprepared for.

The first progress, crawling, led to the initial gate leading from the living room to the dining room. That was easy. The second gate, from the hallway to the kitchen, was more involved (pricey). We wanted something sturdy yet easy for us aging adults to deal with. A metal swinging gate was just the ticket plus it's expandable for when we eventually have to corral The Youngling in to a smaller area by keeping her away from the hallway and the stairs leading to the second floor. I hear stairs can be dangerous for toddlers.

Then I learned that stairs are, in fact, dangerous for toddlers.

Last Saturday, as I tried to entertain the speedy little girl while her mom showered upstairs, I ran to the kitchen for some food (shocking). I figured that nothing could happen in the brief amount of time in which I was gone.

I was wrong.

In the 30 or so seconds I left The Youngling unattended she had crawled to the bottom of the stairs and pulled herself up to the second step. That elevation, while it nearly doubled her height, proved to be too much for her to handle. That's when I heard a solid "thud" and instant crying. Not just any crying but downright hysterical crying. The kind that makes the entire body shake. The kind of crying that happens with the eyes closed and fists balled up.

That's what can happen in 30 seconds. I think it's time to move the gate.

Rookie Dad: Get up, stand up

Even as our entire household fights off numerous bugs, infections and viruses there are milestones being reached every day. Just a couple nights ago - Wednesday to be specific - The Youngling reached yet another milestone.

As I returned from the kitchen I noticed that she seemed taller than usual. I looked again and sure enough The Youngling was standing up. Her motivation for this was that we had left the silverish TV remote on the coffee table and that remote, to her, is like crack.

Everywhere that remote is, she is climbing, crawling or pawing for it. She pushes the buttons, changes the television from cable to antenna settings (which nearly led to me calling the cable company), changes channels at pivotal moments during my favorite programs and simply bangs in on the floor and tables in the living room. It's much more than a simple household electronics device to her, it's hours of entertainment and unintentional motivation.

The standing all by herself event took place just days after The Youngling totally nailed true-to-form crawling. Yep, she's got the whole crawling on her knees thing down after months of her Army crawling throughout various rooms on our home's first floor.

And after standing soom comes walking. I really need to start moving stuff higher and take care of some baby proofing. That bag of broken glass on the first shelf of the bookcase isn't going to move itself.

Rookie Dad: The diapers are all about advertising

Since opening that very first package of diapers waaaay back last November I had wondered about the cartoon characters whose likenesses adorned nearly every inch of The Youngling's earth-destroying butt covers. When did this trend start? Are the diaper conglomerates paid to print the cartoons? Are the cartoons there for a reason?

Rather than do some sort of meaningful research about diaper cartoons, I chose to speculate. Diaper cartoons exist so that in complete darkness a parent can find the stack of diapers. But wait, wouldn't plain white be more visible at night than a myriad of colorful cartoon characters? Actually white is more visible so maybe the butt cartoons are all about he almighty dollar.

Let's assume that huge diaper conglomerates do receive some enormous kickback for printing Winnie the Pooh and Elmo on their products. What do we as parents gain from this? I can say for certain that we don't receive a lower price because paying $20-$30 for something that always ends up in the trash is the best scam ever - and even better if the diaper companies are getting a cartoon kickback and screwing parents.

The big three brands, Huggies, Pampers and Luvs, all have some sort of cartoons splashed across the available real estate of their respective diapers and it hasn't resulted in lower prices so maybe my kickback theory is backwards. Maybe the diaper companies, in some misguided effort to make their products more visually appealing, are paying to use the likeness of Elmo and Winnie the Pooh. If that's the case, I'd prefer my diapers how I like my rice - plain and white.

Rookie Dad: She's in the Army

The Youngling is amazingly well-tempered. She will sit for 30 minutes at a time in the living room on the floor playing with what I affectionately call toy mountain. She doesn't care if anyone is around but she has her own special way of letting you know that she is either bored, hungry, tired, in need of a new diaper or is just curious what is happening in the other corners of the house. She army crawls to where she thinks you might be. But if you're not there, she'll put herself in a precarious situation.

Those situations have included almost climbing in to the refrigerator because I make my lunch for the day with the refrigerator door wide open. I'll chalk that one up to The Youngling being curious about my wasting of electricity.

She has also closed herself in her bedroom because one of her latest hobbies is opening and closing doors. Yes, she actually closed her bedroom door and proceeded to stay sitting against the back side of it. After a minute of being patient and slight pushing, The Youngling took the hint and crawled away ever so slowly from the door. Yep, just over ten months in and she's already trying to keep us old geezers out of her bedroom.

Rookie Dad: I'm a prisoner

It's official. We've finally walled off the living room. No, it's not my own recreation of the Berlin wall. It's actually more of a gate. In fact. it is actually a gate. One of two gates the we will eventually have in place to keep The Youngling from ending up stuck behind the dryer way out in the laundry room if one of us turns our head for a second or two.

Even though she is still in army crawl mode, The Youngling can really move. Just yesterday as I stood at the bottom of the backs steps of our house, after placing the little girl far away in the living room, she had made her way through about forty feet of house and was tapping her tiny hands against the screen door wondering what was taking me so long. I just turned my head and said, as if she could understand me, that the sweet corn doesn't husk itself.

These are the battles that occupy a weekend in our house. On a more proud note, after over nine months I finally gave The Youngling a bath all by myself. She didn't scream, she didn't attempt to drown herself and she came out at least somewhat clean - all without using the tub as a toilet.
Now if I can just find a gate to span the ultra-wide entry way in to the living room The Youngling will finally be contained - for a few weeks.