I Am Human

These are easy days. I enjoy the comforts of my home, my wife, my child. We stay in bed until we're rested and we eat when we're hungry. We are taking our cues from Lula who follows her needs like a compass.

But I feel limited in my abilities and aptitudes in this sphere. I can't feed my daughter but indirectly through Felice. I can clean, I can change diapers, but I know this isn't my core competency, to use a cliché phrase. I am best on a edge of a building, preparing to descend it's face, cleaning the windows in a meditative flow. I am best out in the world making children laugh, adults face beauty in spite of themselves. I am best listening to middle school students try to express themselves through poetry and movement. Until Tallulah is old enough to interact, I fear I'll feel inadequate and useless. My solution is to work, work, work. And sleep, sleep, sleep.

This is a common complaint among new fathers, I think. Feeling out of the loop, relegated to observation, hand waiting, feeling cooped. True to our nature we feel left out, without a role. But this is not about us, needy and wanting. This is about giving life and freedom to those who mean more to us than anything.

We have had our fun. Our running around, carefree. This is a new season. We do the furrowing, and the sowing, not just the reaping. I come of age as my girl comes into life.

I created a movie montage of photos from the pertinent points in Tallulah's and our lives. It begins in Spain, as did Lu. It follows the snowiest day of the year, and also the shortest. It documents birth, family, and joy.

I also wrote a song for my daughter, First Splash. It accompanies the video. Please enjoy.

All the Best from Five Happiness,

Bradley, Felicity, Tallulah, Marvin & Iggy

Further Evidence of Divinity

Richie told me about the "Pregnancy Points Game" he and his wife developed while waiting for their boy Oz to arrive. It goes like this: Each act of kindness he bestowed upon her, rubbing her feet, cooking dinner, cleaning the loo, was worth points. Five, ten, maybe twenty for an excellent seven course Italian dinner. The most points wins.

Delivering a baby is worth One Hundred Fifty Thousand points. Richie is still trying to win. He's at two-twenty.

I am also trying to win. However, a natural childbirth is worth Half a Million points. Attending and aiding the birth gave me as much as Richie has after nine months of his travails. I'm still only at six hundred and two. Eat that Costleigh! (No, I mean, that. Chicken Parmesan.)

But the little kindnesses I manage to orchestrate give deeper satisfaction than winning affords. As do those of our friends. Wes and Laura came by last night with their eight month old, Quentin. Laura made us a beef stew. We sat around watching Q play with Lu's toys, admiring both of their newness. What a treat! I realized how closed in we've been for the last week and a half, snow notwithstanding.

I am forcing myself to go out and do something completely unrelated to child rearing for a few hours to better appreciate these moments. They'll never come again. The moments, that is...not Wes & Laura. I hope.

Tallulah's Family

Grandma Mansanarez, Brother Kirk, Felicity...

Brother-Man

Mother/Grandmother

Auntie Lacey

Grandma

And our extended family, the officers of Black Rock City Animal Control...




(clockwise from left: Stefan, Marshall, Winda & Oz (Lula's first suitor,) Gary (our driver), Heather (co-pilot), Sven, (keeper of the ceremonial tequilla), and Destiny, (Mother-in-Training)

Laura Loves Lula

Wesley Loves Lula

8-Way + F9 + 5 Happiness = Super Love

Without you we would be much poorer in spirit, (and spirits.)
We love you all. Thank you for all your support, friendship, laughter, and tenacity!

"Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away. "

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Tallulah Speaks

[Peering over edge of crib. Looking left, right, ensuring parents are fast asleep before delivering monologue]

Tallulah: Well, hello there. We have to be quiet. My folks are still sleeping, and they have bat-like radar for sensing if I even breathe funny. Which, I must admit, I do quite often. I like to snort, several times in a row as though I were one of those funny ladies being interviewed by Jessica on Murder She Wrote. "No, of course I didn't murder them in their sleep. (snort, snort snort,) I'm just a baby!"

This has been an unusual entrance for me. I was expecting the ticker tape parade the troops get after conquering some huge obstacle or foe. Well, that birth canal was HELL, let me tell you. And Mom didn't even let me pack a bag. It was just hanging out upside down sucking my thumb...or was that my toe? And then my waterbed just went "Floooey" and I ended up spelunking through her pelvis like Bear Grills in some bloody survival show. Luckily my rope held my weight and I made it through unscathed, though I was a shoe in for the youngest member of the Coneheads movie. Thank God for Doctors Without Cold Hands! I am prepared to give my college fund to these forward thinking physicians.

Dr. O'Neal caught me with Johnny Bench's catcher's mitt and tossed me on mom's belly before I had time to put my helmet on. Luckily she crowned me with a nifty knitted number, though the pink was a bit presumptuous. I prefer a mauve, thank you. My auntie Ali Bosie knows what I'm spittin'. Word to my Treestump.

But everyone was crying. Dad, (big wimp,) the doula, (just misty eyed,) Mom, (actually she was just in shock from my quick evac. I think she expected me to ask before leaving the house.) So all I could do was sit there looking around, waiting for the champagne and confetti. WTF people? It's been nine months. As if you didn't have time to prepare! Whatever. I'm so over it. Give me a tit.

So, here we are: I'm doing my best to get what's coming to me. That colostrum crap took way too much work to get. I had to claw my way through the nipple to get to the top shelf. But Mom's giving it up in a big way. I can eat whenever I want. All I gotta do is open my mouth, stick my tongue out a bit, and SLAM, I'm on the nipple. Areola firmly planted in the kisser. Mom makes some funny faces when I do, and I haven't learned the vocabulary she uses to express her joy at my buffet. Something about "Turrett's Syndrome... " I dunno.


Ooooohhh, I think I'll poop. This'll be a gas! Then, when Dad comes to swaddle and change that paper towel he calls a diaper, I'll pull a Chuck Norris and kick him in the chin, or grab Mom's glasses and toss them behind the changing table! Yeeeeaaah! This is livin!

Oh no. I think they're about to wake up. Oh, wait. No, they're just snuggling. Puh-leeze. I guess it's time to demand some attention. Let's watch Heroes, or better yet, that DVD of Akira Dad just ripped. That scene with the melting teddy bears is boss! I love the crotch rockets! I hope Mom doesn't sell her SV 650. I think that should be the start of my inheritance.

[Yawn] Hmmmm. I really can't seem to keep my eyes open. I might just... [Falls asleep standing up. Dad cracks open one eye.]

The Land of Sleep...Nice Place to Visit. Too Bad You Can't Stay.

After a week of one to two hour bursts of sleep, peppered by Fussy Baby (tm) we seem to have fathomed subtle signs of the few significant issues concerning our daughter: Wet Butt, Starvation, Borborygmus Belly, and the vague but important What, You Don't Love Me?

We now achieve eight to ten hours of sleep per twenty-four hour period, which I'm told is an accomplishment. Hooray. I'm going back to bed.

But that is just how we do it. We wake, change a diaper, suckle, swaddle, and dip back into the sleepy pool for a few hours. Repeat until rested. Mornings start around 1 or 2 pm. But we end the day at 10 ready for bed but not exhausted. I can then accomplish some minor tasks such as writing this journal instead of cleaning the office or making money.

Actually, I'm on paid leave right now, as is Felicity. She's home for a while, but I go back to work in a couple weeks. This new life really fuels my labors with new vigor. No matter what I'm doing, I'm doing it as though Tallulah was watching, at my best for the first time since I met my wife. What a motivator, this little bug we made. She doesn't even know the power she wields. Probably for the best. I'm sure she'll figure it out just in time to graduate driver's ed and request the keys to the Saab.

Before Lula was born, I was terrified at the prospect of raising a girl. What do I know about girls? Dresses, berets, stupid girl games, blah blah blah. Now, I just see my child. Thank god. I was beginning to feel like a real ass. I mean, I still feel like an ass, just one not concerned with the label "Girl." I'm more preoccupied with the label "Father." That, I can handle.

I find myself dreaming of future moments. Rock climbing with her, teaching her to make things from scratch, like waffles or a house, or friends. When I took physics in high school, the concept of potential energy excited me. A bowling ball on the edge of a roof was filled with possibilities. But the abstraction from future event made it even more mysterious and alchemical. I feel the same way about my girl. She's a bowling ball of potential.

Let's go knock down some pins.

First Days

We spent almost 48 hours in the hospital after Tallulah's birth. Felicity had previously tested positive for Strep B, so she required an antibiotic IV in the birthing suite. Unfortunately, her quick labor did not allow the necessary four hours the drugs needed to be effective. No emergencies, but the physicians wanted to watch over Lula to ensure no infections were present.

This simply meant we stayed in a full-care, catered hotel room whose location was in a hospital. The ridiculous amounts of snow outside further encouraged us to stay and order in. Despite an uncomfortable "sleeper" couch, (awful and misleading name,) we were cozy and all was well. Our only problem was poop. Or, lack thereof.

The meconium, the tar-like first stool lining a newborns gastric tract, had yet to appear. Twenty-four hours came and went. Then thirty-six. No poo. Normally, I'd be fine with an absence of baby crap, but this was beginning to worry us. By the middle of the third day of our stay, our pediatrician called in a surgeon to scope the poop, as it were. She arrived, calmly applied KY to the end of a Q-tip, and, well, did what surgeons do: poke around.

The term "Hershey's geyser" comes to mind. Yet for all the reactions I've had to other people's children, and their doting over waste products, I was somehow elated. Nor have I yet run in the opposite direction of my child's cries, as I've done with other banshee-babies. I remain a mystery to myself. As Whitman wrote, "I contradict myself. Very well. I contradict myself. I am vast. I contain multitudes."

We left the hospital on the 23rd of December, elated and ready to show the world our perfect, pooping child. Then, we discovered that we knew very little about what our little girl could do. I can just imagine her saying to herself, "What do I have to do to get these people to look in my diaper?" or "Can't you distinguish cries for hunger from the need to burp? Get with it!". Well, I can now.

Our super-doula Anna, came by today. She, like us does not celebrate Christmas, and so we had a nice little meeting discussing the finer points of breast feeding, swaddling, and the safest way to shake your baby. Yes, I said "shake the baby." (I enjoy crafting words into sentences which make some blanch if taken in the wrong context. ) All these calming techniques were miracles to new parents just learning how to cope with behaviors we certainly displayed as infants ourselves.

Armed with this info, Felicity, even in her tired state, feels so much more confident with our girl's feeding schedule. I have a penchant for swaddling. "Back in the swaddle, again..." I sing to my daughter as she becomes a human burrito. "Prepare the Korova Bomb Squad" I call to Felice when Lula exhibits rooting behavior.

The names have begun, in earnest: Lula Cady, Lu-Berry, Chicken (?), Chirping Biscuit (her Indian name, as she chirps when satisfied,) and Tallulah Butterdonkey, as in "Tallulah's great, but her donkey..!" This might require a longer explanation than normal attention or interest demands, as do, I suppose, most family maxims and nicknames.

We are, on this Christmas, full to overflowing with pride, love, and joy. These are gifts I wish upon all our friends and readers of this blog during the holidays. May you all find moments which are filled with all three.

Jubilantly,

Bradley, Felicity, & Tallulah

The Wonderful and the Sublime

I have only been alive for thirty-eight years. My wife, a few less. But in our short lives few things can compare to the endurance, the sheer physical trial, and the elation of a natural childbirth.

Felicity and I discovered she was pregnant almost immediately upon our return from Spain. It seems we conceived under the shadow of the Alhambra. The fecundity of the region spilled over into our lives in more ways than one.

When we arrived back in the States, we landed in Raleigh-Durham to visit with my parents, Stephen & Carol. While strolling in Chapel Hill we both happened to notice, across the street, the signboard of a local shop; Tallulah's. We both did double-takes. Then turning to each other, uttering the same words almost simultaneously, we said that was a fantastic name for a child, should we ever have a baby girl. We did not know then that we were to have a baby girl in December.

Fast forward: birthing classes with the renown doula, Penny Simkin (www.pennysimkin.com)

A woman with decades of natural and assisted birthing experience, having attended hundreds of births, now aids women and their partners in understanding the complexities of this miraculous process. Felicity and I took her class, were more than favorably impressed, and walked away with a wealth of knowledge. Had we not taken that eight week course, I would have been lost in the murky depths of my wife's incredible labor.

We opted to hire a doula, one Anna Rourke (www.breathwise.com) to assist us both in our decision to bring our daughter to term naturally. And again, what a difference that made.

Felice's labor was quick, by any standards. She went into labor at four pm on the Winter Solstice. Just one day past our due date. Though we had been hoping labor might arrive on this auspicious date, we had no idea what nature had in store. Her labor started quickly, with intense contractions lasting almost two minutes at times, only a minute or two apart. Normally a woman's labor progresses evenly, allowing for a bit of momentum to be gathered and the woman to acclimatize . But hers fell like the heavy snowfall that had turned Seattle into a thickly blanketed frozen tableau.

Knowing the forecast called for almost eight inches of snow, we made sure friends with adequate transportation were standing by. Thank god for Gary and Heather, and their 4x4. By five pm, we were at the birthing center triage who informed us Felicity's cervix had dilated to 9.5cm. One begins to push at 10.

Thus began what I can only describe as the most heroic ballet of pain and collaboration I have ever witnessed. Anna met us at the hospital and guided Felice through a two hour progression, masterfully anticipating contractions, fear, anxiety, and pain. By seven o five, our daughter Tallulah Cadence McDevitt had arrived.

No crying, no frantic search, or panic. Lula was placed on her mother's breast, took her new lung's first breaths, and opened her steel blue eyes to her parent's gaze. Simply magical how the new child knows more about what to do and where to go than we, limpid, afraid adults do after so much experience.

I looked into the eyes of my daughter though glazes of tears, my wife's body involuntarily shaking with surges of adrenaline, and fell deeply in love. No other cloudy emotions to wonder about, or concerns to muddy our presence. Just pure awakeness. Pure being and there-ness. I have no other words to describe it.