BUT NO ONE EVER HANDED ME A CIGAR
Tonight is my daughter’s two week birthday. She arrived early in the morning on a Friday, as a slow rain fell on the streets of the Mission District. It’s an amazing thing to witness a birth, let alone your own child’s. In a matter of seconds the baby transforms from a sea creature to a land animal. She can pinpoint your voice and grab your fingers in a tiny, tight-fisted grip. And you’re suddenly confronted with this new, strange face that is both familiar and alien. ‘She looks like my father’s baby pictures,’ you think. You see other faces from the past. You see a bit of yourself.
What’s amazing is that right after the drama of the birth, the midwife and nurses do a quick clean up and then, zoom, you’re suddenly alone with a new baby. It’s a really odd feeling. The baby is nursing at your wife’s breast, and that’s that. You’re parents. Congratulations and good luck!
We spent two nights in the hospital trying to figure out how to care for her, as well as let my wife recover-the baby weighed a whopping 8 lbs, 13 ounces. I must say that a woman goes to a very special place during childbirth. Early on in my wife’s labor, we were both comforted by listening to old spooky gospel songs by the Staple Singers, music that has a slow, pained and primordial pace that lends itself to steady breathing. But as it got closer to the time for pushing, my wife wanted nothing. It was a total mesmerizing focus. It may sound cliché, but once you witness a birth from a front-row seat, your appreciation for a woman’s strength will never be the same. (I am reminded here of something Carol Burnett once said, something like: “if you want to imagine childbirth, try pulling your lower lip over your head.”)
In any event, Sunday arrived and soon we were back home in our apartment and in a totally new reality. Truth be told, I hardly read a darn thing to prepare for parenting. But I didn’t feel guilty about it; what little I did read was usually terrifying. (The worst was the infant car seat manual, a ninety-page nightmare, which included exactly five pages on how to install the seat, and eighty-five pages on the myriad ways your baby will be killed if you don’t install it exactly right). But my parental instincts thus far appear to be sound: When the baby cries, I give it to its mother.
Actually, I’m pretty good at comforting her. She likes rocking in my arms, and it’s only when she starts trying to eat my shirt that I know it’s time for mom again. In that respect, her needs are simple. A boob and some rocking cover nearly all the bases. And yet each day she surprises us with new skills. Today she started smiling in earnest. Yesterday she pooped five times in a single session. Who knows what little miracles are next.
In any event, that’s the big news here in San Francisco.
What’s amazing is that right after the drama of the birth, the midwife and nurses do a quick clean up and then, zoom, you’re suddenly alone with a new baby. It’s a really odd feeling. The baby is nursing at your wife’s breast, and that’s that. You’re parents. Congratulations and good luck!
We spent two nights in the hospital trying to figure out how to care for her, as well as let my wife recover-the baby weighed a whopping 8 lbs, 13 ounces. I must say that a woman goes to a very special place during childbirth. Early on in my wife’s labor, we were both comforted by listening to old spooky gospel songs by the Staple Singers, music that has a slow, pained and primordial pace that lends itself to steady breathing. But as it got closer to the time for pushing, my wife wanted nothing. It was a total mesmerizing focus. It may sound cliché, but once you witness a birth from a front-row seat, your appreciation for a woman’s strength will never be the same. (I am reminded here of something Carol Burnett once said, something like: “if you want to imagine childbirth, try pulling your lower lip over your head.”)
In any event, Sunday arrived and soon we were back home in our apartment and in a totally new reality. Truth be told, I hardly read a darn thing to prepare for parenting. But I didn’t feel guilty about it; what little I did read was usually terrifying. (The worst was the infant car seat manual, a ninety-page nightmare, which included exactly five pages on how to install the seat, and eighty-five pages on the myriad ways your baby will be killed if you don’t install it exactly right). But my parental instincts thus far appear to be sound: When the baby cries, I give it to its mother.
Actually, I’m pretty good at comforting her. She likes rocking in my arms, and it’s only when she starts trying to eat my shirt that I know it’s time for mom again. In that respect, her needs are simple. A boob and some rocking cover nearly all the bases. And yet each day she surprises us with new skills. Today she started smiling in earnest. Yesterday she pooped five times in a single session. Who knows what little miracles are next.
In any event, that’s the big news here in San Francisco.