Category: Fatherhood

Franken Oliver

So, I haven’t updated this blog in awhile. I’ve been busy. This summer, I dreamed the dream that I would blog every day about my internship but that hasn’t happened. By the time I get home in the evening, and Oliver is put to sleep, the dishes are done, and late night emails are responded to, I’m already past my bed time. My forgetful parent brain has already melded with my sleep-deprived brain. It’s hilarious.

With Frankenstorm moved to more Canadian pastures, we’re trying to get back to our lives even though cabin fever has set it. The buses were filled with non-bus people today which made the already strange and crowded moving metal sardine cans (since the subways were down) even more annoying. We’re still trying to learn when lower Manhattan will receive power. And through all of this, Oliver handled it like a champ. He’s been his usual, sometimes annoying, self. It’s like he has no idea that a hurricane went through the area. He’s still his normal, fat, fussy, smily self.

So, tonight, he woke up from a short nap, and decided to lose his lid for no reason. This isn’t abnormal so I went through our normal routine. I held him, carried him around the apartment, harassed his mom pretending that the voice she was hearing was really Oliver’s, etc. When that didn’t work, I gave him some Gripe water and changed his diaper. And when that didn’t soothe him, I put on some iTunes and we had a dance party. I held him close and we rocked out for forty five minutes before he fell asleep. While I held him and danced around, I couldn’t think that there isn’t a sermon in this experience – especially with the fact that a huge part of my city is suffering, in mourning, and waiting for light and heat to re-enter their lives. He fussed, cried, shed tears – but I didn’t let go. In this time of suffering, that’s what we’re suppose to do. And I hope this is what happens – because the effects of the storm will not end in a week, or a month, or a year. But it’ll last for a long, long, time. And we’ll need to keep holding onto each other for as long as it takes. It’s what the church is called to do.

Oliver finally passed out and I put him down to sleep…which he did for a whopping thirty minutes. He woke up, fussing, crying, and angry. I hate waking up sometimes too little buddy. And…well..here’s your mother. Let’s see if she can calm you down this time.

What I like to tell my son on Sundays

This is what I told my son today.

1. May the Lord bless you and keep you everyday of your life, little buddy.

2. Oh Mother of God! (during a diaper change)

3. Don’t worry buddy. You’re gonna be 12 feet tall, 8,000 tons, and you won’t have to worry about being tackled cuz you’re gonna be a dinosaur on the football field. A real dinosaur! ROAR.

I’m working my way up to being this kind of dad. I’m getting there.

Oliver at 3 months

Oliver turned three months old yesterday and he decided to celebrate by wearing a bowtie, doning an Ivy League sweater, and visiting a Whole Foods in New Jersey.

If I didn’t know better, I would swear he’s trying to show up the snazziness of his dad.

Over the last week, Oliver has developed a few habits that are brand new. For one, he’s cooing at us a lot more. He loves having conversations with us and actually will get mad if we don’t include him in our wider conversations about pop culture, gossip queens, and who-is-being-wrong-on-the-internet at the moment. He’s kinda like a cat: he wants to be noticed but on his terms. Chula is obviously teaching him things when I am not around.

But beyond the conversations we’ve been having (and since it is near Halloween, I must quote Nightmare before Christmas by saying that we’re having conversations worth having), Oliver is starting to go to bed earlier but waking up more in the middle of the night. Like clockwork, he is down for the count by 10 pm and up at 3 am and 6 am for a feeding. I have no idea why he’s doing this but it seems to be a fairly normal part of baby development. And my poor wife, after feeding him twice, typically elbows me and tells me that Oliver is my responsibility the next time he cries (which he does, like clockwork, at 7 am). Luckily I have mountains of coffee to sustain me while my wife gets the rest she deserves.

Oliver is also learning what it is like living in a cold NYC apartment. Now that the temperature has started to drop into the 30s this week, and our landlord is refusing to turn on the heat, we’ve been struggling trying to figure out if he’s actually warm enough at night. Since he’s only 3 months old, we’re not letting him sleep with blankets yet. Instead, we’re wrapping him up in footie pjs, socks, and keeping him as far from the windows as possible. He doesn’t seem to complain about the weather but I have no idea if he even knows how to complain about being cold. He does know how to complain about gas, being hungry, and that there’s a dog licking his face so I’m assuming he’d get upset if he’s cold but he might just not know what that means yet. And this morning, when the temperature dropped below freezing, he seems to be napping comfortably. Babies – you just never know what they’re going through. I feel like I’m becoming a Will Smith song. Sorry Oliver, sometimes parents really don’t understand.

Oliver is da daycare man

Yesterday was another milestone in the life of Oliver. He went to daycare for the first time.

My seminary offers subsidized daycare for students (thankfully!) so I packed up his gear while my wife packed up Oliver and we headed down to Chelsea. We arrived, popped into the daycare center, and were confronted by seven unhappy babies. With the new faces in the room, some babies decided to go wild and cry, cry, cry. Others were cranky because they needed a nap. Some were having their breakfast and demanded more. And Oliver – well, Oliver was picked up by one of the workers, placed on her lap, and proceeded to be as cool as a cucumber and he smiled at everyone in the place. Other kids came to say hi to him (and to try to steal his pacifier) while others were jealous of the attention he received. Soon, he was sharing the lap with a six month old girl who, to be honest, is the same size as him. Oliver was just happy as a clam and started flirting with all the ladies around him. What can I say? He’s a player, he’s a baller, he’s a game changer – a chip off the old block if I do say so myself.

It took about 20 minutes to unpack his belongings and leave the daycare. It was tough to leave him but I was happy to see that he was the chill baby. In fact, I spent most of my time taking care of other babies while talking to the daycare staff about Oliver’s needs rather than pay attention to my big guy. I hope he doesn’t pick up any bad habits while there (though he’s gonna get sick – the miles of snot I saw would scare a pathogen movie maker). As we left, he was kicking around in a swing. When K arrived later that evening, he was the last baby there, in the same swing, and taking a nap. It sounds like he had a great day. He napped, ate a ton, and had a great time. He’s got a good life.

I am bad at the blogging

You know, I thought that, during my internship, I’d have time to blog all the time. But…I…yeah..that’s not happening. Everything is going great. I’m writing Sunday School lessons, visiting folks in hospital, and sending out 200 emails a day. It has been a blast. But, well, when I come home, I see these two, and I just can’t find the time to write about the day.

I’m enjoying be a vicaring dad.

The kid, the kid, the kid is on..wait…he rolled over?


OH YEAH. MY SON ROLLED OVER. BOOYAH!

I’m a proud poppa.

Though, since he is now into the next level of his existence, I wonder if I’m still allowed to look at him and ask him, in all seriousness, in the most serious-baby-type-voice I have, why he doesn’t have a neck. He could use one, that’s all I’m saying.

They grow up so fast.

Deity, meet Oliver. Oliver, cry at Deity.

At today’s 9/11 Unity Walk in New York City (I’ll hopefully write more about the event latter), Oliver was a champ. He cried and freaked out like the best of them. I picked him up from home, wore him on the subway while wearing my collar (and reading Rad Dad), and we arrived in Washington’s Square park only 15 minutes after the event started! As we caught up with the group, we began our walk through lower Manhattan, arriving in one sacred space after another, listening to speakers from all sorts of faith backgrounds, and moving throughout the city. Oliver slept through most of the walk. That didn’t faze him. But it seemed that sacred spaces were just a little too much today.

One of the venues was in Soho. We found an unmarked door next to a restaurant being renovated. The door was opened and a staircase confronted us. After two long flights up, an opened door and a young woman welcomed me to enter a lovely room full of windows. But there was a catch – my shoes had to come off. I flipped off my red chucks, bent down with Oliver strapped to my chest (cuz I’m a pro), and found a lovely light blue shelf to put them on. I entered the room, looked around, and thought I was in a yoga studio. I mean…it just felt like it. It seemed a tad too…relaxed…to be in the middle of NYC, you know? It was beautiful with a lovely kitchen, lots of shoes, and it looked incredibly open, spacious, peaceful, with a large center piece decoration that was golden but not ornate. Then I noticed it. We weren’t just in a yoga studio – we were in an active hindu temple and before us wasn’t just a decoration, it was an actual deity. And as the group gathered, our speaker began to speak. And Oliver decided to lose his mind.

I know – I know. He was hot, hungry, and he woke up to discover himself face-to-face with the evil that is polyester blend clergy shirts. I would have lost my mind too. So, I stood in the back, and tried to soothe him. I got close. People didn’t mind. After the speaker finished, everyone said they were happy that Oliver was there. Some folks even took my picture (even though Oliver was cranky). But feeding him wasn’t working so I decided to change his diaper. I waited in line for the restroom and he kept melting down. Finally, once we were in the bathroom, and I began to change his diaper on the floor (and I’m still terrible at taking the Ergo off by myself and putting it back on), he howled. I mean, he howled. And it echoed throughout the temple. While I got him changed and rehooked on, I dreaded what I would see when I came out of the restroom. Would they all be staring at me? Would they think I’m a terrible father? Would my internship supervisor disown me? Luckily, everyone left the building, heading to a new place. It was just me, a screaming baby, a temple servant, and the deity. That deity. Staring at me. And Oliver kept howling. We left, and following standard protocal, he was quiet by the time I reached the fourth step down the stairwell. Whether Oliver was voicing a theological concern or just being a baby, I’ll never know. But that deity got to experience the meltdown that is Oliver. Welcome to the club big guy – welcome to the club.

My singing puts Olivers to sleep. VICTORY.

Oliver, like most babies, has his very own witching hour(s). We’ve learned how to shorten it by taking him out for a trip in the evening. We’ll either go on a walk or go out to dinner or run an errand that requires us to ride the subway. Once he’s in his carrier, he is out and his time as fussy-mc-fussy-pants is reduced considerably. Tonight, after an ok dinner out and a trip to the grocery store, Oliver still arrived home with over an hour of his usual block of time available. He, of course, immediately went into his routine of being loud and cranky. still woke up with an hour and a half of witching time to fill. A plan was devised where K fed him, bathed him, and then Oliver was passed to me to entertain. I carried him but he still fussed. I did deep lunges but his cries didn’t stop. I even sat on the exercise ball and bounced around. He liked that, at first, but it didn’t last long. Even my patented move where we play Olympics (i.e. I put him on the bed face up and wiggle, move his arms and legs around as if he’s participating in various sports) only worked for so long. Oliver had a job to do and I was going to suffer for it.

Part way through it, K suggested a new tactic and said I should sing to him – that Oliver needed to hear a song from his daddy. Now, I don’t consider myself a singer and I have a terrible memory when it comes to song lyrics so I did what anyone would do in my shoes – I sung and stole made up lyrics to the song from my wife. Why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to? And it was shocking – SHOCKING – how quickly Oliver calmed down once I began to sing. His lovable angry/cranky/i-am-so-tired-i-could-kill-you face became mellow and relaxed. He started to look around and began his personal wiggle and dance to the bedtime gods that he does every night before he falls asleep. Sure, he was still up for about 30 minutes but it was quiet. By the time 10:30 rolled around, he gave one giant burp, fussed for two seconds, and then passed out on my shoulder like he just gave up on life. I never realized that a lullaby that I sung would actually work on a baby but it did! I’m going to pat myself on the back for this one.

The song I sung was “The Wheels on the bus but with modified lyrics supplied by K and me. Repeat for 30 minutes. It seems guaranteed to work…at the moment at least.

The Wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round –
The Wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town.

The Kates on the bus eat doritos, do-re toes, do-re toes
The Kates on the bus eat doritos, all through the town.

The Marcs on the bus sing Lutheran hymns, Lutheran hymns, Lutheran hymns
The Marcs on the bus sing Lutheran hymns, all through the town.

The Twinkies on the bus, they chase their tail, chase their tail, chase their tail
The Twinkies on the bus, they chase their tail, all through the town.

The Chulas on the bus, they play with string, play with string, play with string
The Chulas on the bus, they play with string, all through the town.

The Olivers on the bus go waah-waah-waah, waah-waah-waah, waah-waah-waah
The Olivers on the bus go waah-waah-waaah, all through the town.