Father's Day For Me and a Sort of Famous Raccoon

The other day I'm reading a "Ranger Rick" magazine to my son. Remember those? That thing has been around since at least the 1980's because I read it as a kid. My mom got my son a subscription to that and Highlights. Remember "Hilights," reading that thing cover-to-cover and finding those hidden pictures while you waited for what seemed like a week in the dentist's office? A lot of thinks are gone from when we were kids, but some are hanging in there. Anyway, for the Father's Day edition, old Rick had a thing about animal dads in the wild that do nice things for their young. I like to think Rick the little raccoon guy on the cover types these articles up himself. Probably has an attractive young badger lady for a secretary that he fools around with when he is working late on an important piece such as the Father's Day edition. And that's kind of sad to him on his ride home back to his wife and kids, the fact that he is writing this Father's Day piece while having an extra marital affair. Maybe that is the night ol' Rick finds baby raccoon Jesus and gets his damn life back on track.

Says he's working late. Again.

In any event, after we read all about a daddy fish that keeping eggs in his mouth, a daddy seahorse keeping eggs in a pouch, and a daddy penguin keeping little penguin eggs warm on his feet (that's the cutest one), a little word bubble says, "What does your dad do for you?" I asked Erik that question and he says, "Oh everything. You talk to me and you play with me . . ." What was really moving about it was that he answered in a manner that suggested he was appalled that I would even have to ask such a thing. So yeah, he made me card which was super cute and all, but he doesn't even know that the best gift was the way he answered that Ranger Rick thing. Poor Rick. I'll pray for him and his family, but not that adulterous Jezebel badger chick. Not her.

Hey, check out Erik Noisewater performing a scene from a movie. Can anyone name it? I think I may say the name of the movie in the video, but still. Let me know what you think about his performance, your favorite kids' periodicals, cheating raccoon husbands, or anything else really in the comments below.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater's Baby Book Review

I thought I would help other parents out there by letting you all know which books have been helpful when putting Baby Erik to sleep and which ones totally suck. Some of the pictures came in sideways, but whatever. My web master is on vacation.

Knitting and listening to ZZ Top

"Goodnight Moon" was written in the 1940's, and it has been used steadily by parents to put kids to sleep all these years for a reason. All babies seem to love it, I am finding in my limited exposure to my baby and a few others. You basically say goodnight to everything in the "great green room," and at one point there is a little old lady whispering "hush." When I say hush and put my finger up in the hush-motion, Erik always looks up to me for that part. It's all about routines for babies when you're putting them down to sleep, but sometimes I mix it up and go with the ZZ Top version and say she's the little old lady just looking for some tush. It's also all about keeping yourself sane.

"Go on! Take everything! Take everything from me!"

This kid in "The Giving Tree" is a real turd, right? Take, take, take. That's all he ever does. The rat bastard robs the tree of everything over the years to the point where the tree is just a stump and the boy sits his now old ass down on the tree when the tree has nothing else left to offer. You could just as easily have called it "The Taking Boy."

You can't tell me that monkey isn't up to something sinister.

Swiper will pay for his crimes against the lemonade stand.

I have two books with Dora the Explorer. They're cute, and I like to expose the young man to a little bit of Spanish. I will say there are a few too many words, which will lead to the baby trying to turn the page or reach for another book. This is when you have to make up a more abbreviated narrative for each page, or if you're a psycho like me, make a sick joke. For example, you'll see the picture of Dora and Boots the monkey having a sleepover, but look at the evil and maybe a little drunk look on that monkey. He's up to something just as the mom is turning out the lights. Sometimes for kicks I'll say, "Mom, don't turn out the lights for a human and monkey sleepover! That's how AIDS got started!" Yeah, I'm nuts. Sorry. Then you will see Dora and her monkey friend picking lemons to make lemonade while the evil little weasel with the lone ranger mask, Swiper, is stealing the lemons. This is when every once in a while I will say, "So for stealing the lemons, boots held him down while Dora beat Swiper about the head shoulders with a bicycle pump. 

The tear jerker.

Let's move onto a serious note. This is the book that you will read to your kid, and you will cry. Every single time. The worst of these times for me was when Mrs. Noisewater was getting her appendix out right around Christmas time only a few months after Baby Erik was born. My family was nice enough to hold off on the Christmas activities until she was out of the hospital and feeling better. So, one night Erik and I had just left the hospital to go home, go to bed, and come in the next morning. When I read this line to him I cried like no other:

"And if someday you're lonely,
or someday you're sad
or you strike out at baseball
or think you've been bad . . .

just lift up your face, feel the wind in your hair.
That's me, my sweet baby, my love is right there."

I since have bought this book for two other new parent friends of mine, and they loved it too. I highly recommend this one.

Star Wars: A Daddy's Perspective

A good friend of mine got Erik this Star Wars book with original artist renderings of what they envisioned the movie would look like. I spoke earlier about having to make up quick things to say when there are too many words, and here is another great example. There's almost more space for words than pictures. So, for example, in the picture above I will say, "And then the ungrateful Luke Skywalker so hastily attacks his father who had just so generously offered to rule the galaxy side-by-side with his only son." I like to give the story that daddy perspective.

Alexander came to wish you an unhappy birthday. In Australia. 

Here is a classic that I also read as a little kid. I think it's cute that Alexander is obsessed with Australia. But I will say, he seems like somewhat of the brooding emo pessimist type. I would wager he listened to The Smiths in his teenage years. He's a good kid. 

"Try it and you will see!"

Here is the takeaway from "Green Eggs and Ham": Sam-I-Am is the best salesman ever. He approaches a customer with a product that the customer completely hates and tries every angle to find a way to make it work for the customer, be it eating those eggs on a plane, on a boat, or (my favorite), with a goat. Cracks me up every time. What would a goat bring to the table aside from spitting, howling, and smelling bad? Yet he tries that angle anyway to exhaust all the possibilities. Without a doubt the salesman of the year over there and Green Eggs and Ham, INC.

Dinosaurs actually became extinct at the hands of giant babies.

Kids go bananas over pop-up books, but that is also the problem. In their excitement they will beat the shit out of pop-up books. Just look at that once mighty dinosaur. No match for Erik's fat finger beat-down. 

Where the jerks are

Here is another classic, "Where the Wild Things Are." And here is another pretty awful little kid, chasing the dog around the house with a God damned fork, and hammering nails in the wall. So, his mother sends him off to bed with no supper, which is when he envisions going off to an imaginary land with monsters. There he becomes their king and sends them off to bed without their supper. Jeez. Rather spiteful, right? 

My kind of town

We have many friends who got us Chicago related books, and those are a lot of fun for a baby growing up in the Windy City. The Cubs one is especially fun, and that "C Is For Chicago" one has amazing drawings. I only read the Cubs one after a win. S is for "sore loser." 

I'm sure many of you remember "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." I had not seen it in a number of years and got to the end to find the last page was the one on the right. So, that's it? The caterpillar ate too damn much and got fat? That's the lesson for the youngsters out there? Don't eat like a pig or you'll be a fat-assed caterpillar of a kid? No, that's not how it ends. The final page where he becomes a butterfly was ripped out by my nephew. It's a darker and more cautionary tale without that last part. 

And here you see Erik at his office carefully helping his dad write this blog during his lunch break. It was no-pants Friday at his work. They have fun days like that over there. Hope you enjoyed the book reviews and it can be helpful to some of you with kiddos of your own.

Any other children's books recommendations that you care to leave in the comments?

Dr. Ken Turns 40

Well, it's my 40th birthday today, so I figured I might as well do a blog post. I have the day off of work, and I'm spending it with my 4-month-old little buddy, Erik. The only thing I had to get done today was drive out to Toys R Us and Carter's to return some of Baby Erik's Christmas stuff. I don't know a lot about parenting, but here is a good tip: Don't buy anything for babies that has buttons all the way up and down. The very idea that people are still making, buying, and selling button-up and snap-up baby clothes when the zipper is 10 times faster is astounding.

Speed is of the utmost importance when you're changing 30 diapers a day. Snapping one-by-one with a baby crying and squirming all over the place . . . Why would you put yourself through that? So, yeah, the button-up jammies had to be returned. Instead I got him some of those sweet sweatpants that look like jeans. Mrs. Noisewater was saying she is okay with all of his sweatpants, but daddy insisted that the boy have some jeans when he is out in public (or at least give the outward appearance of jeans). My boy is no everyday sweatpants fella, and I intend on being sure of it. I dig those jeans/sweats so much that I spent the extra 8 bucks to get one that is one size bigger that he can wear when he outgrow the first pair. I considered buying a pair for myself because I like comfort as much as the next guy.

Okay, as it turns out you all haven't been missing much by me not blogging anymore as evidenced by these topics. But I have decided that I need to try to write more. My good friend's father just died, and every time I think about my own mortality I immediately think that one of my biggest regrets would be not writing more. Weird, right? Well, have no fear. When I'm dead and gone there will be brilliant pieces of work out here on the inter-webs about my son's magical jeans that have the comfort of sweatpants.

I know it's wrong, but I watch some television with my infant. What? The horror! Well, when you have kids, you tell me if you can do doctor recommended play crap all day long. Believe me, it's nice when daddy wants to watch the Bulls and he will sit next to me with that beautiful blank stare of his into the glowing beautiful light. So the other day Erik and I were watching Robotech. Anyone ever watch that as a kid? I know a couple of you are right around my age, but to be honest, a lot of friends who I talk to don't remember it. It's a Japanimation cartoon from the 80's about a time in the future where an alien spaceship crashes into earth, and humans use the technology to develop their own weapons (such as jets that transform into robots), and then years later the aliens come down to earth to retrieve the spaceship and kick ass and stuff. There are some love stories going on and some major characters dying, which was really heavy when you were a kid. Here's a clip of Robotech below.



Another thing going on is that my mother-in-law is flying in from the San Francisco area to stay with us for 3 months to help watch Baby Erik while Mrs. Noisewater and I are at work. It's a small apartment for the four of us, but it will be really great to have her here. She grew up in Japan. I wonder if she will watch Robotech with me . . .

Tonight Mrs. Noisewater and I are making pizzas and maybe having a beer or two for my birthday evening. We don't go out as much anymore, but we really don't miss it that much. It's a more simple life, and our little guy brings us a lot of joy. Like the other day my son is on the couch with me and I got a hold of his ankles, making his feet clap like a pair of hands, doing stuff that dads do when they run out of shit to do. I thought I smelled some poop, and just as I move my nose right up to his little butt, he cuts loose with a whopper fart. Expert timing. I laughed my ass off. He just kept farting.

See you next time, friends.

Baby Erik's Birth Story

I wanted to sit down and write the story about the day Mrs. Noisewater gave birth to Baby Erik because I thought it would be cool to have it all on record to look at years down the line. Two months have gone by, and I'm finally sitting down to write it. I figured out that I couldn't wait until I would have lots of time or when I'm not super tired because I NEVER have any time, and I'm ALWAYS super tired. So while he takes an hour nap right now, this is the time to write it all down. It's a long a long one so I understand if you skim through it.

Our doctor kept telling us every visit that the baby was basically ready to go because Mrs. Noisewater was dilating, and the baby's head was right there, knocking on the door. She told us just to come in on Thursday, September 8th and she could induce, even though the due date was on the 12th. We thought it would be a good idea to go out for dinner the night before the induction so that we would have a nice night out together, just the two of us, before the baby came. We had Tapas, so who knows which item it was because you sample so many with that type of cuisine, but something likely gave Mrs. Noisewater food poisoning. Bad idea eating anything risky around the time of labor. Now we know. Our appointment was around 8AM, but at 5AM Mrs. Noisewater was throwing up and had daihrrea. I called up the hospital, and they said to get her in right away so that they could get her on an IV so that she wouldn't get dehydrated. I was in a panic when I drove her into the hospital, but it was go time.

Here's my big homie at 2 months old.

It turns out all those stomach problems induced the labor on its own. Erik was due on the 11th, but he was coming out on the 8th one way or another. Things were very, very scary for quite a while because Mrs. Noisewater was still having to get up to go to the bathroom to throw up and go number two quite often, and even after multiple IV bags had pumped into her, the nurses were surprised that she wasn't more hydrated. We could see the heart rate of mommy and baby up on the screens, and both of them were too high. I was a nervous wreck watching those monitors and spoon feeding my wife ice chips. Mrs. Noiswater's body temperature and heart rate eventually came back down to normal levels, and so did baby's.

Our doctor is a really laid back cool hippy type of doctor. She makes you feel very relaxed when you're around her. I felt like I have known her all my life, and she seems like the kind of gal you just want to sit on a back porch with and drink wine all night and contemplate the universe. We had a baby birthing mix on, and when the doctor heard a Wilco song, she said, "Oh, I can't believe you have this Wilco song on here. I delivered both of Jeff Tweedy's kids." What!? How amazing is that?

This is us out for some tiny beers. We are starting to have lives again.

The doctor said, "Okay, dad. It's time for mom to start pushing. You'll be grabbing that leg and pushing her knee back towards her shoulders each time she pushes." What? I mean, I know it's not the old days where the men smoke cigars in the lobby, but I had no idea that the daddies got so hands on nowadays! Mrs. Noisewater was to push as much as she could for the duration of each contraction when the monitor said a contraction was coming (because we couldn't tell at all if she was having contractions because she an epidural. Get one of those by the way, everyone. It's the only way to have a baby). Mommy is really fit, so she was good at doing a stomach crunch/sit-up while the nurse and I pushed her legs up, and baby came out quite quick once she started pushing.

Once the head is out, the rest just slides right out because the shoulders can wiggle from side to side. I just remember seeing how long his torso was and how his legs just kept going and going as the doctor slid him out. A number of people said, "What a big boy!" He was 9 pounds and 20 and 1/2 inches long at birth. We didn't know going in if we were having a boy or a girl, and I remember looking at his beautiful little face, not even having taken a glance towards his genitals when the doctor announced, "It's a boy!" God damn. Everyone always says it's the best moment of your life, and it is. No doubt.

But then they said there was fluid in his lungs, and they had to rush him to the NICU to get that taken care of. I thought that would be a quick process, and they would bring him back. It turns out Erik stayed the night of the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th before finally going home the afternoon of the 12th (his actual due date). We would sleep in our room in the hospital, but every other minute we could, we were with little Erik in the NICU, holding his hand, rocking him, and feeding him. I remember the first time Mrs. Noisewater saw him with all those tubes hooked up to him, she started crying. I wanted to be strong for everyone, but when she cried I wanted to as well. Erik's breaths per minute were still a little high, so he had to get some assistance with his breathing for a while. Even when that finally came down, he still wasn't eating enough. They wanted him to reach a certain number of milliliters, and if he didn't get it all down, they shot it up his nose. This was just a sad process to see our little guy go through. It made me think of a force fed farm animal or something.

Remember how I said that his mommy saw him  in the NICU, and it made her cry? Well, when I put him in this Halloween costume and came out of the bedroom, she cried again - only from cuteness! 

We got an extra day to stay after the usual time allowed for new mothers because of Mrs. Noisewater's illness - they had to keep giving her antibiotics through an IV. Then that day ran out and they still didn't want to release Erik. So they found a little room on another wing that only had a single bed, but at least we could be in the same room with Erik and all the machines he was hooked up to. For that last night, Mrs. Noisewater stayed in the room with him in the single bed, and because there was no room for me, I drove home, slept for 4 hours, and came right back. It was unusual to have a baby of Erik's size in there because all of his neighbors in the NICU were very undersized. Any time I was getting too down about the situation, I would look around to some of the babies around him who couldn't have weighed more than 3 pounds, and their visitors could only stick their hands into the sides of the incubators when they would visit (they couldn't even hold their baby).

Erik's grandma was too scared to pick him up with all the tubes hooked up, but look how thrilled she was to hold him for the first time. This is one of the best pictures I've ever taken.

I'm not a real doctor, you may know by now, but I had to play the part of Dr. Hardass to get my boy sprung from the joint. The doctors only make the rounds once a day, and I essentially had to say, "Listen, can you get the doctor over here? Because our boy's levels are all good, right? He's just not breast feeding quite enough, but we are fine supplementing with formula. If the doctor isn't going to be coming by, we'll just be unhooking him and walking out of this joint." That worked. The doctor came by to clear him, and off we went.

My heart goes out to anyone who has complications with their babies. I vowed to become a better friend to anyone who is in that situation. I'll be johnny-on-the-spot with anything I can do for those families because it really is a stressful situation where you feel totally powerless and helpless when all you want to do is protect your new little person.

The night we got home, 9/11/2016, Kyle Hendricks of the Chicago Cubs had a perfect game going until the 9th inning. I was bummed he didn't finish that one out for Erik's first night, but then the Cubs won their first world series in over 100 years a couple months later in his first year of life, so that's still pretty damn awesome.

Go Cubs Go! This was his good luck onesie.

People ask me all the time what it's like to be a father, and what I tell them now is that I've never been so tired, but I've never been so happy. And it's hard to explain, but everything I do now is for a purpose. I had all this freedom before, but all that freedom afforded me time to sit around get worried about dumb shit. Now I'm just on the go and getting things done for my beautiful wife and cute little man, and I'm good at it. I don't always feel like I'm good at much, but it turns out I'm a good dad. So far. And I enjoy it. Being a dad is way more fun than I thought it would be. I absolutely love it.

By the looks of it, Erik seems to think I'm doing an okay job. Look at us in our matching sweatshirts! Thanks for reading, friends.

Fatherhood Has Changed Chicago Man, But He Still Won't Eat Camel Meat

My wife dropped me off at work today because she needed our car to take our baby boy to a doctor visit. I packed a lunch for myself and left it in the refrigerator. Isn't that the worst? This is even more of a problem than any other day because where I work on Mondays has nothing nearby to walk to for lunch options. For those of you not from the Chicago area, the neighborhood of Devon street near Damen Avenue has a milieu of cultures ranging from Nigerian, Pakistani, Indian, and you name it. I found a middle eastern restaurant, and I must admit it didn't look very clean and didn't smell too great either. I think I may have actually given it a shot, but then I saw a sign that was happily announcing "Camel meet on Fridays!" That actually scared me off, so snuck out and walked another few blocks to a McDonald's. My stomach was upset from the synthetic food, so I may have been better off with the camel meat.

Why not on Wednesdays? Hump Day!

My tummy was in knots as I worked my way back down Devon to get back to work in time when an elderly Caucasian gentleman walking in the opposite direction stopped to talk to me. Only he didn't appear to be speaking English. I listened hard to see if maybe it was just a thick accent and actually English. I told him, "I don't know the language you're trying to speak to me in." He said some things and I think I heard "Bosnian" in there somewhere. So I said, "Yeah, I don't speak Bosnian. Sorry." Maybe I just have a Bosnian look to me? Or maybe if he sees a white guy in the area, he just assumes Bosnian? Whatever the case, it's too bad I don't speak his language because he seemed very excited about the prospect of conversing with a fellow Bosnian buddy.

So, like I mentioned in paragraph one (if you're still reading), the wife and I have a baby boy now. When Mrs. Noisewater was very, very pregnant we went to a Chicago Cubs game together. She met me after work at a nearby bar and told me that some random drunk had just stopped her on the street and said, "That's a boy!" and pointed at her belly. I think people are going with the old wive's tale that if you carry your baby all up front and not in many other places, then that means it's a boy. So, we left the bar to head into the game and another random drunk homeless man said, "You' havin' a boy!" Well, the drunk homeless prophets were right; He's a boy, and he's beautiful.

They say it's good to talk and to sing to your babies, so he already has some go-to songs that we sing to him. One is "Beautiful Boy" by John Lennon. I think that is a song I would have thought was totally corny in my pre-daddy days, but now I absolutely love it.



The other song is "He's Misstra Know It All" by Stevie Wonder, only I sing "He's Mister Cutie Man." Yes. Mister Cutie Man. You read that correctly. I am no longer the least bit cool, and I fully accept this as fact and as a way of life.



Sincerly,

Mr. Bloggie Man

The other day just about the only thing I had to do for the entire day was put a baby crib together. How long could that really take? Well, little did you know I got a C- in Industrial Arts in Junior High, and I suck at this sort of thing. If there is anything that could have been done wrong, I did it wrong. Two different times I figured out way too late that I had put something on backwards and had to take apart just about everything to get it put on right. Believe it or not, I woke up all sore the next day from sitting on the floor in awkward positions screwing screws into stubborn bolts. 

This was my first real dad task, and I'm not going to say it was a complete failure. Sure, there were a lot of bumps in the road and a lot of swearing, but I stuck with it and got it done. I think it was a metaphor for what parenting is going to be like from what I hear from my friends: You have to figure it out as you go, you're going to suck at it at times, but you just stick with it and stay positive. And they'll be lots of extra parts. Okay, that makes no sense. I suck at carpentry and metaphors. 

I ran the Chicago Rock and Roll Half Marathon last weekend. I have figured out that halves are plenty for me. No more full ones because those destroy perfectly good bodies. My good buddy, Night Train, and I run around 10 miles once every weekend, and it's been great for keeping weight off and gives us time to recover. Also, that way you don't get sick of running when it's just once a week. The race went really well for us, and they had live music along the way. They also had rock impersonators, and I tested the Blues Brothers guys and said to them as I ran by "Orange whip . . . Orange whip . . .," I was very pleased and impressed that they both responded with "Three orange whips!" and did the proper hand motion. The Elvis impersonator looked very hot, sweaty, and hungover, so I didn't engage him with any fun pop quizzes. He looked busy concentrating on not throwing up on himself. 

Hot yoga has been a great way for me to recover from running way too far and taking entirely too long to assemble things with seemingly simple instructions. Usually I'm just about the worst yogi (that's what they call yoga participants) in the class, and that's fine. You have to be willing to be the suckiest guy in the room before you can get better at anything. I'll tell you right now that I'm in decent shape but can't touch my toes. Not even close. Slowly I'm getting more flexible, and I always leave feeling refreshed and thinking with a clear head. However, yesterday right when the class ended, some country music kicked in and continued for at least four songs while I was in the locker room. I would prefer they play any innocuous new age wind chime music music that just blends into the background. That's fine and expected. But, I can't relax when I'm listening to a song about some guys drinking a six pack of beer in the back of a pick-up truck. Unless I'm right there in the back of that truck with them. Country makes me angry, and I can't tune that crap out. 

Always good to have a spotter

When I was in high school I left my alarm clock-radio alarm (I'm old) on the other end of the room and had it set on the country station. That way I knew I wouldn't lie in bed and listen to the music because I knew I would have to run across the room to turn it off or slowly lose my mind. So, it's been a long history of hating country music. I was thinking of leaving a complaint with the yoga studio, but I'll just complain to you guys instead because that's what I've always done.

So running, volleyball, and yoga have been about it as far as exercise goes lately, and I have been losing some muscle tone. I have been avoiding doing any kind of weight training due to an elbow problem, but today the elbow felt pretty good so I pumped some (really light-weight) iron. You know that debate kids have on the playground where they say "My dad could beat up your dad?" Well, what I don't want is some kid saying that to Kenny Jr. and poor Kenny is left saying, "You're probably right. My dad has pipe cleaner arms and can't even screw together simple wooden structures with directions that even a chimp can follow. He's hardly a man at all, but he can do a downward facing dog in his hot yoga class that will make your head spin!" That won't score him any points at all out there on that playground. 

No segue at all here, but I was at work not too long ago, and a coworker said, "Kenneth, I saw on Facebook that we have a mutual friend." She said the friend's name, and the name meant nothing to me. I looked it up, and it is a blog buddy. She was saying what a great dude he is, and it made me happy to hear that. I said he is an excellent writer, and she said that he helped everyone write their term papers in college. This pleased me too for some reason. I was proud of this dude I have never met. Then I had to explain to this coworker that I had never met him, and I'm a grown-ass man with pen pals. 

One blog buddy I have met is SO@24, and I was reminded recently of the time we first met in L.A., and for reasons I can't remember, we recreated the suggestive cover art from Hall and Oates' 1982 release, "H20." I thought of this because I went to an outdoor Hall & Oates show last night on a very hot and humid Chicago night with my sister, her boyfriend, and my very pregnant and sweaty wife. Believe it or not, we were actually just as sweaty as Daryl Hall and John Oates were in the picture! 

(Hall & Oates)

(Dr. Ken and SO@24. We should have got sweatier or just spritzed water on our faces. It will always be one of my biggest regrets.)

There has been no real rhyme or reason to where this post has been headed, and I'll just end it here. Go ahead and leave a comment related to any of the scatter shot of topics I have run down in this rambling stream of consciousness, or just say hello to your insane pen pal buddy from Chicago. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to admire the glorious crib that big daddy built with his own. bare. hands!