Day 50: Independence Day

 So I've come to the final day of Episode 3 of my Daddy-blog. Since this page will be the first one most people see here on the internet for (internet-) forever, here's a little intro:

Hi. My name is Alex. My wife Jen and I just had a baby named Ida. She's our 4th baby.

 

Ida. for great justice. 

 

For babies number 2, 3, and 4, I got a substantial amount of time off work (about 42 days +/-), and spent each evening blogging about our activities.

Of necessity, these updates are posted in reverse order, but it should be pretty easy for you to navigate and read these front-to-back if it suits you. Of course, I don't know why you, random stranger, are interested in our lives, but such is the modern age.

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Today was the 4th of July / Independence Day. 

For those of you who know my family, you know that every July 4, we get together, eat a bunch of things, and create havoc with fireworks that is neither safe nor sane. This year was no different.

My sister invited us to her house in Gaston, Oregon. It took us most of the morning prepping food, packing up and getting ready. I did a lot of the baby care this morning, which typically involved Ida laying on my chest and both of us passed out. Jen and I got grumbly at each other for being late and not being ready. Finally, we had the whole family canned into the car and ready to go. Betty is still feeling sick, but hopefully with her on both antibiotics and antivirals she's safe to be around other kids... ....hopefully.

Ida got passed around to many hands and was loved by all.

Ida with auntie.

Ida with cousin.

Grandma and Grandpa.

lots of love from Grandma.

my sister has a new kitten in the garage. Some of the kids spent hours playing with / poking said new kitten.

 

Betty (6) with kitty (2023)

Betty 2016

A close up on Betty's recurring eye cold sore. This pops up every year or so in the corner of her eye and is super scary. The one on her cheek is new this time. Luckily, there's medicine that can knock it back out in a few days.

Edgar (14) clownin'. (2023)

Edgar (2) dead serious, (2011)

I wanted a picture of all my kids on the 4th of July, but Sabrina (12) somehow avoided the camera. So here's her at sunset last night. (2023)

Sabrina, 2011

 

I somehow got roped into driving the kids around in uncle David's "Gator" 4wheel drive yard tractor. We zipped up and down the hill and around their property and the kids loved it. They kept yelling "Tip us! Tip us!" At first, I thought they meant they wanted me to roll over the gator, which I of course wouldn't do. Finally I discovered that the back section works like a dump truck, and the kids in back wanted me to dump them out. Okay then.

Me, Betty, and a load of cousins.

 

I managed a quiet hour before the fireworks started, and what did I find? Oh yeah, my favorite thing in the world-- a hammock to nap in.

nice view.

The fireworks were fun and crazy. Jen and I didn't buy anything this year, but we had a big garbage bag of leftovers from last year (mostly illegal Rez fireworks). Edgar, Sabrina, and Betty all got to light things off. Edgar was very into the mortars and firecrackers. Betty loved her sparklers and roman candles, and Sabrina got brave and lit a few mortars too. Everything was super crazy, very unsafe, and nobody got hurt or injured. Just like a family 4th should be.

Jen and Ida fell asleep halfway through the fireworks, so we packed up and got ready to go before we woke them up. All in all, it was a wonderful day of family, food, and fire. I managed to drive home and not fall asleep, and Jen did lovely things of taking Ida's overnight feedings so that I could wake up for work in the morning.

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The last two times, I've rounded this up with a lessons learned section. 

I feel like as I'm getting older and more experienced as a dad, the less I know... Nevertheless, I'll take a stab:

1. I STILL love naps. I've even worked them into my regular work schedule now.

2. Sometimes it's just hard. I was expecting an easier time managing everything with teenagers about. ...but there's some things only Mom and Dad can do. These kids are awesome caretakers (and all of them change diapers!) but our house is a mess and I swear these kids can't wipe their nose without Mom or Dad telling them how.

3. Babies are cute.

 

4. Hospital births are beautiful, too. No shame or guilt on anyone who has a baby in any way. Bringing a life into the world is AMAZING no matter how it's done. But also check out waterbirth.net if you're open to that sort of thing.

 

5. There's a better division. When you have your first kid, you don't worry about it. For Sabrina and Betty, I decided that I would take care of the older kid(s) while Jen did all the hard work with baby. This time, we did a more equitable split. It produced 2 results: 1) we didn't have as many zany adventures (see past blogs where we were doing big things every day). 2) Jen isn't burning out from parenting and we raise a kid that loves the both of us. While this doesn't produce the flashy results of a blogworthy adventure, I think I've bonded to Ida better than any of the other kids, and Jen is able to stress less and let go of a lot of things. With the other kids, she felt like she couldn't even go to the store or leave the house for months. This is better.

6. Projects? Whatever. I knew this. If you want to get things done, don't plan them for when you have a new baby. 

 

7. The more experience I get, the less I actually know. All those things I took for granted with the first kids? It's all different now. It always is.

 

8. No clear consensus on tongue-tie. Ask me in 6 months. For now, I'm super not sure that cutting Ida's tongue was the right decision.

 

9. Family leave is important. I honestly don't know how we could have gotten through this C-section / baby-not-nursing debacle without two active parents. Lawmakers across the US are trying to limit the amount of coverage and care that parents can take, despite us being the only large civilized country without dedicated family medical leave.

10. Nobody read blogs in 2011. In 2023, people don't even know they exist.

Well, that's all. I'm pretty sure this is our last kid. See you on the flipside, or when these babies have their own babies.

Day 49: Plan F

 Last night, the family and I planned to do something along the lines of a last-amazing-adventure before 4th of July and the end of my daddy leave. Betty is sick, so it would have been just Edgar, Sabrina, and myself.

Plan A was a trip to Mt. St. Helens. Found out this morning that there was a landslide a month or so ago that has closed the main road up to the mountain.

No problem. Let's come up with a Plan B.

We can use our zoo membership for reciprocal admission at the Oregon Historical Society Museum in downtown Portland. That opens at 10, so we can sleep in a little later.  Maybe we can do some other fun portland things like get voodoo donuts and putt-putt at glowing greens and maybe lunch at a food cart.

Oh, Betty is still very sick? Her ocular herpes flared up again (like it does every 18 months or so) and she needs a new prescription? OK, we can wait until we get Betty her prescription before we leave for the museum.

What? Sabrina has an orthodontist appointment at 1:30 today? How did we not know? OK, maybe we do this after her appointment.

Well, the appointment is done and it's 3:30. The museum closes at 5, so that's out of the picture. Why don't we go to Glowing Greens later after dinner and let Sabrina and mom go shopping for cute 4th of July clothes?

So, had a lovely relaxing time in the hammock and finished my book. 

After dinner, I checked out the website for Glowing Greens. What? They close at 6 PM? Whyyy?

OK. change of plans. There's a similar putt-putt place in Vancouver. We can go out for ice cream afterwards. Wait, their last mini-golf tee time is 6:10? That's in 10 minutes!

OK. What are we on? Plan F? Come with me, kids.

So, we grabbed some Burger King ice cream, fries, and (nasty stale) mozzarella sticks and headed for the PDX runway. Somehow we managed to get there during a lull-- hardly any planes landing or taking off. After a while, things picked up, but it was mostly boring-- the biggest planes were the furthest away. It was not amazing like this or this.

Then, we headed up to Rocky Butte, one of my favorite places in Portland. There, we admired the view, played frisbee on top of an active volcano, and watched the sunset.

Home (Vancouver WA) from Rocky Butte. Also pictured, Mt. St. Helens (Plan A) and at the far left on the horizon, Mt. Rainier-- also just barely visible from our fire lookout a few days ago.

So this couple is in all my sunset pictures. That's not creepy.

So, for Plan F, that wasn't bad. While we were at Rocky Butte, we got a message from Jen that they were having a power outage. 

...and making the best of it by playing Battleship.

We got home just as things were getting dark, and scurried around the house finding flashlights and a propane lantern. We got all set up for a game night:

Jen taught Betty chess. Edgar advised. Sabrina and I played Fox in the Forest. Just as always happens, 10 minutes into our games, the power came back on. Oh well. It was a fun night.

I got to put Ida down, and now it's bedtime for me, too.

Day 48: Pinochle Sunday

 Time is ticking out. We are very aware that in just a few days, our babymoon will be over and I will be going back to work (from home, ok, it's not that hard). Jen very sweetly let me sleep much of the night last night. I did have a 4 AM feeding where Ida just wasn't tired. (And I couldn't keep awake), but then I got to sleep in blissfully long.

I went to church (alone again) today, but had a great time and taught a lesson to a trio of rambunctious 4-year-olds.

After church, I had a kingly afternoon nap, followed by yummy sunday dinner of meatloaf and baked potatoes. That's doing it right.

After dinner, Jen, Ida, and I went to my parents for an evening of pinochle.

That's grandma, playing pinochle with Ida in a rocking chair.

After that, we came home and Ida was passed around to many hands. She's a bit fussy tonight and not sleeping when we want her to.

Betty's hair looks like 4th of July fireworks.

Day 47: Night Fever

Ida and I got to bed fairly early last night. Jen stayed up doing art. I don't know what time she went to bed, but she got up and fed Ida in the 2:00 hour. 

In the 3:00 hour, we had a hot little visitor to our bed. Betty was running a very high temperature. She threw up a few times, and was very dehydrated. Jen was convinced it was heat exhaustion. I wasn't so sure-- most obvious being the lack of real heat she was exposed to. Yeah, she spent a lot of time outside with her cousins, but Pacific City isn't exactly the tropics. We only spent about 15 minutes at the beach yesterday.

Anyway, Betty was acting scary. We ended up drawing her a lukewarm bath, which was freezing to her, and then having her watch endless reruns of Is It Cake and Floor Is Lava on TV (is this kiddie reality TV or kiddie game shows?)

Jen took her to Urgent Care once they opened, while I snoozed with Ida.

Betty, finally getting some rest on the exam table.

Doctor's diagnosis was strep throat. Sent Betty home to get rest and fluids.

Most of the day was spent with Betty (and the older kids) watching episode after episode of stupid tv. 

 Jen and I, not having slept much, took various naps and tried to get the basics of laundry, dishes, and Ida care done. I got reacquainted with my hammock for a bit.

There was a miscommunication between the doctor and the pharmacy, so we didn't get Betty's antibiotics until this evening.

Evening was spent with Betty on the couch in the living room watching her tablet while the rest of us watched Ocean's Twelve. This was about my 5th time through it and I think I finally understood it.

Not much happened today, but I suppose that's a good thing.