Hey, Brookie, look what Daddy has! It’s your bottle! Look at that smile on your face. You’re so pretty. Okay, here it comes, open up. Whoa, what’s the matter? Where’d your smile go? Remember ten seconds ago when we you were all happy and smiling at Daddy? Those were good times, weren’t they? It sort of reminded me of that other time twenty seconds ago, when I showed you your bottle and you smiled at me like you wanted it. I’ll never forget those happy times we had. It’s just like that other time thirty seconds ago when I told you how pretty you were while I was holding you and getting ready to feed you, and you smiled at the compliment. I treasure times like thirty seconds ago. You never know when things might take a turn for the worse, Brookie, so savor those times like you had forty seconds ago. Remember that time? That was a special, happy time. Sometimes you don’t even realize how good you have it until the moment is gone, like this one time fifty seconds ago, you were smiling and looking forward to your bottle, not like now when you’re crying and spitting the nipple out every time I try to give it to you. There you go, that’s better. See how nice and cozy it is when you don’t resist and you just eat when you’re hungry instead of crying about it? You even look like you’re on the verge of happiness again. This is so nice, it reminds me of another nice time we had lo these sixty seconds ago. I remember it like it was yester-minute.
Hey, Brookie, look what Daddy has! It’s your bottle! Look at that smile on your face. You’re so pretty. Okay, here it comes, open up.
Whoa, what’s the matter? Where’d your smile go? Remember ten seconds ago when we you were all happy and smiling at Daddy? Those were good times, weren’t they?
It sort of reminded me of that other time twenty seconds ago, when I showed you your bottle and you smiled at me like you wanted it. I’ll never forget those happy times we had.
It’s just like that other time thirty seconds ago when I told you how pretty you were while I was holding you and getting ready to feed you, and you smiled at the compliment. I treasure times like thirty seconds ago.
You never know when things might take a turn for the worse, Brookie, so savor those times like you had forty seconds ago. Remember that time? That was a special, happy time.
Sometimes you don’t even realize how good you have it until the moment is gone, like this one time fifty seconds ago, you were smiling and looking forward to your bottle, not like now when you’re crying and spitting the nipple out every time I try to give it to you.
There you go, that’s better. See how nice and cozy it is when you don’t resist and you just eat when you’re hungry instead of crying about it? You even look like you’re on the verge of happiness again. This is so nice, it reminds me of another nice time we had lo these sixty seconds ago. I remember it like it was yester-minute.
If you’re a parent, you can probably relate to looking at a hundred different pictures of your baby or child and appreciating each one for it’s unique cuteness, but you probably also know that if it’s not your baby, one or two pictures is usually enough to fill the cute tank and the rest just look the same while you smile and nod politely. That’s sort of how I feel writing about mundane details like who’s eating what or how much they weigh. It’s all interesting to me and I’m grateful for everything about being a father, even the mundane parts, but I’ve steered away from describing Brooke and Claire in meticulous day-to-day detail because I reckon it’s just not that interesting to anyone besides us, and also because one day is pretty much like the next at this point in their development. I don’t mean that as a complaint, and I know that soon they’ll be doing and learning new stuff faster than I can share it in my blog, but for now, the general fatherhood stuff is more interesting to write (and hopefully to read) than redundant updates about how the pooping is going. If you really go for the more mundane stuff, though, here’s what you’ve been missing:
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Brooke spent the last few days trying to master finishing a bottle at every feeding under the time limit (30 minutes), and what finally seemed to do the trick was spacing her feedings out a little more (every four hours instead of every three) and compensating for the decreased frequency with increased volume. She improved with that schedule enough to be ready for a car seat test last night, which she passed, so… Brooke is coming home today! Yaaay, Brookie Brooke!
I always look forward to visiting my daughters in the NICU, which we’ve been doing twice a day since they were born three-and-a-half weeks ago, but I’d be lying if I said every visit was full of non-stop fun and bonding. There’s a lot of boring downtime mixed in, and even when I’m basking in the love of some quality kangaroo care, there’s only so much entertainment you can get from staring at the top of your baby’s head or their vital stats on a monitor. Kate and I talk, of course, and we’ve filled in some of the boring parts by reading to each other and our babies, but still, it can get pretty dull. (In a NICU, “dull” is generally preferred over “exciting”, since excitement in an intensive care unit isn’t always a good thing.) Sometimes, though, some combination of how the girls are acting or what we get to do with them will make a particular visit especially good. Last night was one of those times. Read the rest of this entry »
