Category: Dad Stuff

New Adventure

Exciting new things are happening.  Your mom wants to be a stay at home mom.  That way she can spend more time with you and maybe even devote more time to her photography.  It’s a hard process to get going and an even harder thing to do in today’s society.  Multiple incomes are almost a necessity these days.  But with God’s help we’ll pull it off.  Just remember that your mom scarified a lot to be able to stay at home with you. It’s something you’ll hopefully come to appreciate when you get older.

You’ve started playing with your feet lately.  Just can’t seem to get enough of them.  It’s so much fun to watch.  You’re getting so big and developing so fast.  I really enjoy every single little thing that you do.  Your tongue filled smiles get me through the day.  Rolling over still seems to be a fun thing for you.  Although you seem to get frustrated when you realize you can’t crawl yet.  It’s like your brain is more advanced than your body.

Anyway, gotta go.  I’ll post more soon.

Love Dad

Exciting Times

So you rolled over the other day. This one was from front to back. It was pretty cool. Your mom and I had been slacking on the whole tummy time thing so I decided it was time to do it. Your mom had not been feeling well so she had gone back to bed to get some more rest. I laid you down on a blanket on the floor and within a few seconds…flop… right one over like you had been doing it for weeks. So naturally I grabbed my phone, flipped you back over and hit the record button. This was the result of that:

Baby girl’s first rollover

Then I picked you up and ran into the bedroom to show the video to your mom. She was bummed that she missed it, but she loved it. So naturally we spent pretty much the whole day trying to get you to do it again, you weren’t interested.

Your Uncle has been watching you this week. You’re going to have to thank him when you’re old enough to read and understand all this. You’ve given him a rough time the past couple of days. Sounds like today has been pretty good though. When I went home for lunch he told me that you had almost rolled over from your back to front. A few minutes ago he texted (I wonder if that will still be popular when you are older or if you’ll even know what it is) me a picture of you about half way over. Pretty cool stuff. Maybe you’ll let your mom see this one live this time.

Until next time…

I love you

Dad.

Big Baby Girl

So. Apparently your mother and I have been slacking off in writing to you here. In fact, this is the first one since you were born by either of us. Well, you are a pretty big bundle of joy. You were born 9 lbs 15 oz. Basically you were a 10 pound baby and 22 inches long. Today you are about 25 inches long and almost 13 pounds. You like to “talk” to us a lot. You will sometimes get frustrated if we don’t spend enough time just talking with you. Our Pastor at church once asked me what surprised me the most. I didn’t have a very good answer at the time. Now, my answer would be how truly amazing it is to watch your development.

One of the things I do fairly well is anticipation. It comes from what I do for a living I suppose. Constantly solving people’s computer problems, you learn to anticipate them so you can work things so the problems don’t come up or at least lesson the sheer load of them coming at you. I anticipated a lot of things when it comes to you. I knew I would enjoy watching you grow and develop. I had no idea the sheer pleasure it would bring me. The simple act of you smiling at me will lift me up for an entire day. And talking to me, that’s just the coolest thing ever. Other people calling it “cooing”. I think you’re really trying to talk. I swear you are trying to get full sentences out sometimes. It makes sense though. From your point of view your mom and I are making noises and you want to make noises too. The big difference is that sometimes you need to get your whole body revved up to get a word out. I totally love it. I’m still working on getting you to say dada or daddy. I think you’ll say daddy (or close to it) and skip right over dada. Sometimes it sounds like you’re already trying to say it. I just think there’s more going on in that brain of yours then most people would imagine. Sometimes it seems like you want to do something, but your body isn’t developed enough to do it yet and you get frustrated. I wonder if that’s the same for all babies or if I am just a proud dad projecting on his daughter. Whatever it is, it’s fascinating!

One of the new developments is how physical your getting. You’re almost ready to roll over and you keep trying to sit up. It’s like you see your mom and I sit up and you want to sit up too. Pretty soon you’ll be moving all over the place on your own. That’s when I have to take inventory of the house and put a bunch of stuff away so you don’t hurt yourself on anything. That’ll be a fun time. We’ll be chasing you all over the house. It’ll be great!

One of the things people told us before you were born is that this will change your life. I knew it was true then and it’s even more true now. You’ve changed our lives for the better. The more you grow and develop the more cool things we get to witness. You truly are a blessing from God…

But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:14 ESV)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17 ESV)

Hello again

Ok. So it’s been a really long time since I’ve written to you. Sorry about that. You’ve gotten a lot bigger and a lot more active since we last talked. You’re mom likes to watch your movements. She gets a real charge out of it. Generally speaking she has had an easy time of it all so far, compared to others we’ve heard about and talked to. Your mom is pretty tall, so she has a little more room for you to move around and grow.

As I write this there are 7 weeks left until your due date. You’re room is almost done. We’ve actually spent more time rebuilding the bathroom from scratch than we have on your room. Someday we’ll show you some before and after pictures and I think you’ll agree that it was the right way to go. Family and friends have been pretty generous in the stuff they’ve given us for you. The first few months of your life will be much easier because of them. We thank God all the time for that. Remind me to tell you all about all of it and all of them. It’s important to remember things like that.

I find myself noticing dads with their daughters lately. I imagine that it’s me and you. Kinda cheesy I know, but that’s where I’m at right now. People often tell me about how life is going to change. My first thought is, yeah. That’s the point. I’m totally looking forward to it. I’ve spent most of my life thinking about myself. Making the world a better place for my daughter is something I look forward to very strongly. Sure, it’ll be a challenge and we’ll have tough times. There will be lots of “dad” moments, but honestly I’m looking forward to all that too.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I’m betting there are other dads out there that know what I mean.

Until next time, hopefully it won’t be so long.

Love dad.

Hi Little Girl

Hi baby girl. Felt you kick the other day. Your mom grabbed my hand and put it on her belly. It was pretty cool and surreal for me. I had flashbacks of my mom pregnant with one of my brothers and feeling them kick. Now here I am with a child of my own on the way. Pretty neat.

Obviously, we found out that you are a girl. I’m excited about that. There aren’t a lot of girls on my side of the family, which means that between you being the first grandchild and being a girl, you’ll be spoiled rotten. 🙂 I have a few cousins that I think will get a kick out of it too.

By the way, if by the time you are reading this, I haven’t taught you to play baseball, football and gotten you started in your BBQ education, call me out. 🙂

Looking forward to meeting you.

Love Dad.

A good day

Your mom and I went to the doctor today to get a good look at you. We got some great pictures. We even decided that we even wanted to find out your gender now instead of waiting until you were born. Well, turns out that you had something to say about that. You weren’t interested in letting us know at all. Pretty funny actually. We spent the whole pregnancy up until a few days ago thinking we didn’t want to know. Then the day comes and you decide, nope, I don’t think so.

The doc wants us to come back so they can get another look. They just want to make sure everything is forming properly. That’s the only part they weren’t able to check. Everything else is great. I knew it would be great to see you and hear your heartbeat, but I didn’t realize how cool it would be. I was mesmerized by the sound of your heart, beating so fast. Watching it beat, watching you move around, your hands and feet, that thumbs up shot we got (remind me to show you that one), amazing. Totally amazing.

Afterwards we went for a walk down by the river. Your mom got some great pictures of some ducks and geese. She’s really good at that. They always seem to stop and pose for her when she’s taking their picture. Pretty cool to see. You’ll find out all that soon enough.

The weather was great. Warm and sunny. Nice to see after such a rough winter. Your mom says the snow isn’t coming back. I think she’s right. All in all it was a pretty good day.

What Dad does

Dear Noodle,

It’s time for me to explain what I do for a living. I’m an IT guy, computer guy, web developer, tech guy, gadget guy and whatever other terms are invented for describing a person who works with and fixes technology for a living. Truth is I’ve been doing it for a long time and I like to think I’m fairly good at it.

I do have some complaints about it though. They’re not the complaints you’d think. They’re not about the people I help with their technology. That’s my job, to make it easier for people to deal with their tech. It’s my job to learn it, know it and be able to fix it. My complaints (maybe more of a rant) are about other tech people and the stances they take to what they use.

I get really annoyed at how protective people are about what they use. It used to be Apple vs Windows. People choose sides and would publicly put down the other. Now it seems to be Apple vs Android. (I do find it ironic though that one side of both of those “battles” is the same company) Same choosing of sides and the same putting down of the other. Drives me crazy. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying what you have, but getting obsessive about it enough to the point where you feel the need to put down someone else is not.

I grew up a Windows guy, but as I get older I find myself drawn to Apple products (I’m writing this post from our iPad). Maybe because they seem to be easier to use. Or maybe because I don’t have to tinker with it. Windows is great if you like to tinker. Android falls along those same lines. There’s lots of people that will appeal to. I figure that after 20 years of tinkering on PCs I’ve earned the right to not tinker on my personal stuff if I don’t want to. I shouldn’t be ridiculed for that anymore than I should ridicule someone else for prefering Android (like one of your Uncles).

I’m really curious to see what you’ll be using when you’re old enough to read and understand all this. Chances are it’ll be cool and it’ll be something you’ll like tinkering with. When I’m an old man ranting about how things are too complicated, just remind me of this post and that I used to be a tinkering Windows guy.

Love Dad.

Preparing for the Superbowl

One of the first things I need to show Noodle is the art of BBQ. Ok, the FIRST thing we will teach him or her will be to love Jesus.

Side note: are we saddling this kid with a bad nickname?

I’m cooking some pulled pork today for the Superbowl party at my parents house tomorrow. I’ll also be making a fresh batch of my BBQ sauce. I’ve had a craving for it lately and this is the perfect excuse to pull the smoker out of the garage.

As soon as I figure out how to do this for a living, I’ll be a happy man.  Suddenly the Pastor’s sermon about work comes to mind.  🙂

To Noodle from Dad

Dear Noodle,

Got lots of snow recently.  Shoveling snow is hard work, but can be satisfying when it’s over.  🙂  Even using a snow blower (borrowed from the neighbors, don’t forget to thank people for favors like that) is rough when you get the amount of snow we got in the last day or two. If we don’t have a snow blower of our own by the time you are old enough to read and understand all this, remind me of this post because you’ll be helping (at least) with this job.  I will probably need to be reminded of the pain my shoulders are in, from clearing the driveway last night and the clearing of the end of the driveway this morning (with a shovel) after the city plows cleared our neighborhood during the night.  I’m very thankful that they did it though, so your mom didn’t have to drive me to work (note: 4 wheel drive is a wonderful thing).

Looking forward to meeting you, so you can help with the driveway.  I promise to wait until you’re old enough to hold a shovel.

Love Dad.

Pictures

Saw the first ultrasound pictures of the baby.  It was all a little unorganized in my opinion.  She had multiple doctor appointments over a few days and we really didn’t know what was happening when, but we thought we did.  The first doctor appointment was for her yearly checkup and a possible heartbeat of the baby.  So, this is the one I really wanted to be there for.  So, I took a long lunch and went.  Too soon to hear the heartbeat as it turns out, but the doc rolled in the ultrasound machine and we got a shot of the baby.  Basically a blob on the screen.  Couldn’t make out details, but it was still cool.

Well, the next appointment was a few days later, but we didn’t know what this one was for.  Turns out it was to get some detailed ultrasound shots of the baby using a different “method”.  I won’t go into details, but you dads probably know what I mean.  They saw the baby.  Took measurements.  It even moved.  The kid is a ham right from the start.  🙂  I totally would have taken some time off if we’d known that’s what was going to happen.  They did get some printouts that I saw.  It would have been nice to see it all live, but seeing those pictures (and the detail) blew my mind.  Totally made my day.

Lesson for the day, ask more questions.  All this is routine for the doctors and such.  So, it’s up to me to get informed and be there for the important stuff.

From here on out, all I will need for a little moral boost is to look at those pictures.  At least until the next ultrasound in about 8 weeks.

Can’t wait.