Painless

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.

Sophocles

Our daughter had a shot today. It wasn't the first time that she has had a shot, she is half-way through her second round of shots. My wife and I have decided that she only gets one shot at each office visit. This makes us have to go to the doctor three weeks in a row but it makes the pain less for our daughter. At least that is the idea.
Today's shot must of been different because I have never seen my daughter act like she was today. She couldn't stop crying and it was an angry, I am hurt, why aren't you helping me? kind of cry. I looked into her eyes and she stared back into mine with this look of fear, pain and anger that I have never seen before in anyone else. She was looking to me to make her feel better and there was nothing I could do to ease her pain. I can't explain to her what is going on, why sometimes shots hurt. She can't tell me what hurts her, where it hurts or for how long it hurts. All I could do was look back into her eyes and cry. I felt powerless, like I had let her down and I just couldn't handle her little face being so hurt and afraid.
After about 2 hours of my daughter not acting right we called the doctor. Of course, the office was closed as it was 5:05 and we had to page an on-call doctor. If you have never waited for a doctor to call you back, the wiat time is tantamount to torture. When you have a screaming baby, and it's your first child, every moment that goes by waiting for the call is frustrating. By the time the call came I was all ready beginning to get our daughter in her car seat to take her to the emergency room. I shudder to think what that experience would of been like.
Thankfully, the doctor gave my wife some good advice and my wife was good enough to heed the advice. We got the baby to relax long enough to give her some Motrin and then we placed a cold towel on her leg close to where the shot was given. It took about twenty minutes but almost like magic our daughter returned to the smiling happy baby she has been since she first got into this world.
I have never really thought about how hard it must be for parents who have to deal with their kids when the kids get really sick. I am talking about cancer, heart problems or brain surgery kind of sick. I always felt compassion for these parents but after going through this small taste of what theat must be like, I honestly don't know how anyone can stay sane after going through that kind of an ordeal. Hopefully, I won't find out if my wife and I can stay sane through this. Perhaps, we will continue to be fortunate and our daughter will continue her healthy ways. I guess I have no right to ask for that good fortune but I am asking for it anyway.

Easter

Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.
Og Mandino

Our daughter is really responding amazingly to songs, music and singing. Yesterday was Easter Sunday so we went to church to try and keep some spirituality and perspective in our lives as parents. Our daughter was just amazed by all the singing.
As you can see from the photo, Samantha had her first encounter with the Easter bunny. Some of the things about the holidays and how we as parents are supposed to expose our children to them are very confusing. Which of the two is more important? Is it the bunny or is Jesus? Does it depend on her age or does it depend more on how we view the holiday? How do we prepare our daughter to be able to tell what is made up to sell her things and what is made up to scare her? How can we on one hand tell her that a magic rabbit is going to hide eggs around the house and leave her some chocolates while we know it certainly is not true? If we don't believe it should we be telling our kids that it's the truth? What kind of damage does the lying cause between parents and kids?
I suppose all of these questions have been asked and answered by thousands of parents. I just hope that we are asking the questions and that the answers are right for our daughter.

Through the eyes of a child

Through the eyes of a child

by Michael McDonald

The eyes of a child, so innocent and pure
A child’s heart is full of song
Take their tiny hand, and lead them to the light
As adults we see pain in this world
And it sometimes don'’t seem right

But through the eyes of a child
The world seems magical
There'’s a sparkle in there eyes
They'’re yetrealizelise, the darkness in there soul
The beauty of their smile
Adventure Ocean wide
Sure life is kinda gay but it doesn'’t seem that way,
Through the eyes of a child

So don't give up even when the road seems long
Just find that child inside of you
Yeah you got to find you
Spread your wings and fly
To the brightest star
And if you want, you want
I can get my friend Steve to detail your car
For about twenty bucks

But through the eyes of a child
The world seems magical
There'’s a sparkle in there eyes
They’ realize the darkness in their soul
The beauty of their smile
Adventure Ocean wide
Sure life is kinda gay but it doesn'’t seem that way,
Through the eyes of a child

Got a light on my hand
I've got a light on my hand
I've got a light on my hand, but still I can'’t find you
Light on my hand, where have you gone girl
Light on my hand, I'm coming up behind you
Light on my hand, Don't turn around now
Cause I ’m right there I ’m coming up behind you

Through the eyes of a child
The world seems magical
There'’s a sparkle in there eyes
There yet to realise the bastards the really are
The beauty of their smile
Adventure Ocean wide
Sure life is kinda gay but it doesn'’t seem that way,


Before we jump right into today's blog, let's take a few seconds for a personal announcement...beginning in two weeks this blog will be added to the Concord Monitor. Actually it will be added to the Concord Monitor's website along with a few other blogs. The Concord Monitor is New Hampshire's second largest newspaper and it reaches over 200,000 people in the captiol region of New Hampshire. From my perspective this is pretty exciting as this blog will begin to reach a much larger audience. Well that's the big news related to the blog and now on to your regularly scheduled programming.
Some old friends from North Carolina came to visit with us today and we went out to lunch. We also invited some friends that have a three and a half year old and a two and a half year old. I noticed that the people at the table behind ours were getting annoyed that the toddlers were making noise and acting like toddlers do. Not acting like bad toddlers, they were just acting the way young children act. They were talking a little loud and they were excited to be out at a restaurant. The behavior of the adults at the table behind us sparked some thought in my mind about how I acted before we had kids, how I viewed kids in general and how those views have changed since becoming a dad.
The older man at the other table obviously didn't like our friends' children. He was consistently rolling his eyes and made a motion like he wanted to break the glass water bottle on the edge of a table and stab someone with the jagged edges. I guess the thing that I found strangest was that this man had an infant seated at his table. I assume it was his grandchild because the other people at the table seemed to be the right age to have a newborn. The old man seemed to be interested in the newborn, he was holding the newborn while the baby's mom ate lunch. It was too strange to see someone have such contempt for other people's kids but nothing but love for their own.
I am saddened to admit that there have been times that I have felt annoyed with other people's kids in public. I habelieveever made beleive that I was going to stab them with a broken bottle but to each their own I guess. Now that I have become a parent my opinions about children have, of course, changed. My daughter has opened my eyes to the wonders of being a parent, enjoying the world through the eyes of a child. Seeing everything for the first time and just being amazed by everything that the world has to offer. I am lucky that I was ready to let me daughter show me these things.
I hope that someday the man at the table behind us can remember what being a child is like again. Everyone deserves to be able to see the world through the eyes of a child sometimes.

Soon enough

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Benjamin Franklin

I got to watch my daughter yesterday. Not such a big deal, I have watched her a few times over these past 4 months. Yesterday was a little bit different, I realized for the first time that I have no idea how to take care of my daughter. My wife has really been doing all the taking care of since my daughter was born and in a few more short weeks I will be taking care of our daughter full-time. We have a lot of work to get done between now and June 10.
The main thing that I am struggling with is how to get her to eat from a bottle. She just has no real inteest in doing it and I am not being patient enough to help her learn how to do it.
I guess there are certain things that moms can just do better than dads. My wife seems to have an inexhaustable supply of patience when she deals with our child. It really is quite amazing. It also is really quite intimidating because I know that no matter how hard I try I will, eventually, get frustrated. I guess my wife gets frustrated as well but she doesn't take it out on the baby. She has lost almost all patience with me!
That's okay our baby is only going to require all of her patience for a little while. I'll probably need it for the rest of our lives.

Opening day

Words can be like baseball bats when used maliciously.

Sidney Madwed

Every year right around this time there is a sense of hope in the air throughout all of sports fan nation. Every team still has a chance to win the world series. Every team still has the opportunity to make their fans cheer, cry, lament and remember.
Today is opening day for major league baseball and the beginning of the baseball season marks the beginning of the spring to me. Baseball means that it's time to forget about the snow and begin to focus on all the new things that the spring and summer bring. New plants, new animals, new hopes and new dreams. I am not saying that you can't have dreams and hopes during the winter, they just come out more easily in the spring for me.
Just like a Pittsburgh Pirates fan (if you don't know this all ready, the Pirates are consistently one of the worse major league baseball teams) a new parent begins the journey or new season with all kinds of hope and anticipation. Any real Pirates fan, at least on opening day, will think "This year will be the year that the Pirates will turn it around, they're going to make the playoffs this year." They have all kinds of theories and stats that make this claim sound almost plausible. In reality, it's nothing more than wishful thinking.
The new parent will do things differently than their parents, they will strive to be better, to love their kids more, spend more time with them, teach them earlier the difference between hot and cold or right and wrong. Maybe the new parent will focus on making sure their child can read simple words before kindergarten or do some basic writing by preschool. Every new parent, at least I hope every new parent, has goals that they have for their newborn child. Much like a baseball fan who refuses to look into the past to see how their team will do in the future, new parents don't always focus on how they were parented before they begin parenting themselves.
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it...someone famous at sometime uttered those words. I don't think they were talking about parenting but they really could have and probably should have been, As a new dad I need to remember what I was taught as a child, how my parents were with me so I can use what I want in my parenting toolkit and leave the rest out. My daughter deserves the best that I can give her as a father, I think that learning how parents influence and affect their kids for life is a sobering, serious thing to do. It shouldn't be taken lightly, it is the hardest job that I can imagine.
I am glad that it's baseball season, Baseball lets me think about hats, hotdogs, balls, strikes, and foul balls instead of how monumental a task my wife and I have undertaken.