Newborn

So the first three months of your life were a nervous blur for me.  You amazing creatures do not come with an instruction manual and I had not a shred of exposure to a newborn.  Your Uncle Jeff, or “Jungle Jeff” as you called him when you were about 3 years old, had your cousins Owen, Grace and Quin when I lived away from Cleveland, in Cincinnati, five hours away.  So I only visited them at holidays and Summers.  I was never there for the diapers and the feeding.  Uncle Dan and Aunt Lori tried to have a baby, but they weren’t able to.   Uncle Terry and Aunt Nastia had cousin Tristan two years after you, so I had to learn on my own!

In your first three months, you had colic, which is a mysterious and nerve-wracking situation with babies. You cried loudly and for a long time, usually around 7PM at night.  As a daddy, I was SO nervous and anxious when you cried.  I just wanted to fix whatever was wrong, so you did not cry and I wanted to make sure you were happy and healthy.  I was so nervous and my mind would race and fear that there was something wrong.

Well, one smart thing to do when you have your first child is you talk to your friends who have healthy happy kids.  You get their advice.  The best advice I received was from Seliena Crampton, who said, “Babies cry.  Don’t worry about it.  It’s what they do.  And at three months, they become “Miracle Babies” and they stop crying and smile and laugh and it’s SO much better.”  She was SO right.  We fed you some stuff called “Colic Calm” every night around 7PM when you would start crying, and it worked pretty well.

One of the fears that I always had about being a daddy was a selfish one:  That I wouldn’t get any sleep.  But you were AMAZING!  Neither Mommy or I rolled around much when we slept, so we kept you in bed when we slept, right in between us.  Newborn babies wake up to be fed about every three hours.  Mommy was breastfeeding you, so you would wake up, she would roll over and feed you and you would go back to sleep.  You NEVER woke us up.  You were very healthy, and rarely sick.  I think when you were about four months old, we finally put you in a crib in your bedroom with Rian and it wasn’t a problem at all.  Sissy sleeps like a LOG! You almost have to yell to wake her up, so you never woke her up either.

You traveled with us a lot your first year.  Daddy would take you on business trips, and we would go to visit family.

You flew five times, to New York, Cleveland, Michigan, Los Angeles, Phoenix.  You traveled really well.  I learned that as a dad, your job is to be a sherpa!  Those are the guys on Mt. Everest who lead climbers on their journey.  They are in charge of carrying all the stuff.  It seemed like the smaller the kid, the more stuff we had to carry.  You had a changing bag with the diapers, a car seat, a stroller and more.  So Daddy would have to lug all that stuff from the car to the airport.  We had to maneuver it through the airport security and onto the plane.  We would “starve” you in the airport, and you would be really cranky and crying in the waiting area.  We did this on purpose, so that when we got on the plane, you would be nice and quiet.  When we got you on the plane, Mommy would feed you and you would be the best traveling baby EVER!  You were a traveling pro and as you got older, you were even more fun and had fewer and fewer things to take with us.  I always look forward to taking you to new places. I like to take you back to places you’ve been too, to see the people and relatives you’ve met.

This picture above was taken in Starbucks near Lake Eola, where I walked you hundreds of times.  This picture was first of many times where I looked at you and you were so beautiful that it took my breath away.  It was just a cell phone camera and it still showed how pretty you were from such a young age.  The pictures below show you the day you were born and shortly after.  You can see Moxie was right there!