SORT OF MADNESS

Dear Spike:

It’s cliché — my God, it’s cliché — but you’ve really changed my life.

There was a time when I defined myself by my work. But today your mother and I spent a considerable amount of time contemplating whether we could afford for me not to work.

Ultimately we decided we can’t quite cut it. Your mom’s salary might cover our mortgage, insurance, student loans and car payment, but we do like to eat and heat our home in the winter. So at least for the time being, we’ll remain a two-income family.

But in a big way, that’s beside the point. We had a discussion about me quitting my job. And I wasn’t completely sickened by the thought. In fact, I was sort of excited by it.

Maybe that’s the exhaustion talking. I’ve always felt like I was rather adept at multitasking, but you’ve challenged that skill to new heights. Today I gave a lecture while holding you on my hip (in addition to being cute, you made a nice prop when the discussion turned to the subject of teen pregnancy.) I’ve gotten rather good at balancing you between my arms while I type (sometimes with just one hand when I’m feeding you.) And I’ve become pretty good at diapering you with one hand, too (thank God for Bummis.)

But it’s never easy to serve two masters. And at the end of the day I don’t feel like showering or cleaning the kitchen or even reading a book. All I want to do is sleep.

I know your mother is tired, too. She spends all day with her kindergartners (someday ask me to show you the scene in the movie “Gremlins” where the monsters take over the movie theater — that’s what it is like.) Then she comes home and (if she’s lucky) she gets three minutes to decompress before I throw you into her arms.

And maybe this sort of madness might not sound like fun to some people. But in our rare, quiet and calm moments I look down at you and wonder aloud how I ever believed I was happy working without you. And on the days when I have to drop you off at the babysitter’s house for a few hours, all I want to do is get back as soon as possible to pick you up. And while the increasingly rare hours when you nap are my best opportunities to get any substantial work done, sometimes when you sleep I miss you and I feel like waking you up so we can play.

Obviously, I can’t take you to Iraq or Afghanistan with me. And next time I jump out of a helicopter or get Tasered by police officers, you won’t be invited along.

But you know what? Those things aren’t quite as compelling to me as they once were. And while I still feel committed to the profession I’ve chosen, it’s become less of who I am and more of what I do.

I do still like what I do. And that’s a good thing, I suppose, because it doesn’t appear than I’m going to be a full-time house husband any time soon.

But you know, I can dream.

Love,
dad

MISS THESE MOMENTS

Dear Spike:

People used to marvel when I’d tell them that you regularly slept through the night. Six, seven, eight hours. “Yeah,” I’d beam, “my baby rocks the party.”

But lately, I suppose because you’ve been growing so fast, you’ve been waking up to eat at least once a night — and sometimes two or three times. And since every bottle I feed you is another bottle that your mother will have to fill at some other point during the day, she’s been pretty insistent that she be the one to feed you at night.

I suppose that’s nice, because I get to sleep. Or have the opportunity to do so, at least.

Except here we are, it’s 3:06 a.m. You’re asleep. Your mother’s asleep. And, really, the vast majority of the United States is asleep. . .

And I’m awake. Up like the Red Sox in Game Three.

OK, Star Wars is partly to blame. At the moment, Luke and Han are searching the Endor Forest for Leia. In a few minutes, the Ewoks are going to open a can of yub nub on the evil Imperial Forces — and who would want to sleep through that?

But also — and more so — I simply enjoy lying here and watching you sleep.

These opportunities seem to be growing more infrequent. You’ve been spending fewer and fewer hours napping during the day. You still take a few 20-minute catnaps. And whenever we’re in the car for longer than 10 minutes, you’re out like the Rockies in Game Four.

But during the daytime, every moment you slumber is an opportunity for me to get a little bit of uninterrupted work done. And so I often miss these moments.

Thankfully, Friday night has become “slumber party night” in our home — the night when you get to escape your cradle and come sleep on the big bed between your mother and me.

And while we say it’s a treat for you, it’s really for us.

And particularly for me.

I love watching your tiny tummy move up and down and my heart melts at the way your sweet little lips curl into a smile while you dream.

I love watching as you curve your back up and stretch your arms out in a way that allows you to take up as much room on the bed as either of your parents — even though you're only five months old and you only weight 11 or 12 pounds.

I love listening to your soft sleepy snorts and your dreamy little squeals.

And I love it when you curl your skinny fingers around my pinky and we sleep together, hand in hand, though the night.

Yeah, my baby rocks the party.

Love,
dad

FIRST DAY BACK

Dear Spike:

This morning marks my first day back to work since going on paternity leave, a month ago. It likely also marks the final day in which my various bosses will cut me slack for the fact that I have a new baby.

And so, at 7:39 a.m. this morning, I’m sitting down at my computer. You’re playing in your rain forest playpen.

Here.

We.

Go.

Love,
dad

HELLO 21st CENTURY

Dear Spike:

The weather began to shift, this week. Now, I have to wear a sweatshirt when I walk you in the park in the mornings. It won't be long before I have to ditch my shorts for pants and my sandals for shoes. And it won't be long, after that, that I'll have to ditch my sweatshirt for a jacket.

The seasons change quickly in Salt Lake City. Spring and fall are but fleeting thoughts — quick and colorful pauses between summer and winter.

By Halloween, it will be snowing again. And it won't stop until next May.

I don't mourn the passing of our blistering summers. I do, in fact, enjoy them more than our arctic winters but I'm usually ready for a change by this time of year. But lately, I have grown particularly sad at the thought that our visits to the park will have to be more limited once the winter comes. No longer will I be able to walk you around the pond until you sleep, then relax on a bench, writing and checking email on the free wireless internet connection as you slumber.

At some point, it's just going to get too cold for that. And I'm not sure your mother would understand if she came home from work to a hypothermic daughter.

"Matt, why is Spike blue?"

Yeah, that would be bad.

But still, it was with a bit of regret, today, that I strapped you into your car seat and drove downtown to our local Internet service provider. I know I could have done it over the phone, but I really prefer to do business face to face. I guess I'm just old fashioned in that way.

Maybe I'm old fashioned in other ways, too. We don't have a home phone. We don't have a cable TV, or even an antenna for that matter (So I'm often lacking for anything to say when folks gather 'round the water cooler at work.) And we've never had the 'net at home (there was a period, a few months back, when we were able to jump onto our neighbor's wireless signal, but I suppose they wised up to our thievery.)

I tell people we're not "wired" because we like to keep our home life simple — but really it's because I'm cheap. And because your mother is tolerant of my cheapness, bless her heart.

But with the end of my month of full-time daddydom looming and the prospect of working from home seeming ever more complicated, I've finally and lamentably entered the 21st Century.

Hello, 21st Century. Thanks for waiting up.

Next week, I'm told, our phone line will get hooked up and a wireless modem will arrive in the mail. A few dozen swearwords later, I suspect, we'll be wired. I suppose there are a few better ways to spend $44.95 a month, but probably none more practical.

I suspect we'll be raising you to value a buck. And I know we'll want you to seek as many opportunities as possible to get out of the house and enjoy your community and your world. And to the extent that it is possible, I'll encourage you to combine those two things.

But when it's warm enough — and probably when it isn't — I'm certain you'll be able to find us at the park, you in your stroller, slumbering away in a snowsuit, me at my keyboard, tapping away in my mittens.

Love,
dad

OUR FIRST DAY

Dear Spike:

We spent our first day of “Daddy Daycare” together.

I’m still alive. So are you, for that matter.

Yeah us!

Love,
dad

FEEL LIKE FAMILY

Dear Spike:

Your mother goes back to work this week.

I was greatly looking forward to beginning my paternity leave this coming Monday. But with half of my colleagues still hunkered down, down south, waiting for what is almost certainly going to be bad news in regards to the lost miners, my boss has asked me to stay on for a few more days.

I like feeling wanted, so I agreed — though I made him promise not to send me back down to the mines, since your mom’s going to be working and we have no real daycare plan.

Finding someone to care for you is going to be part of my job when my shortly delayed leave finally begins, on the 27th of this month. I’ve already asked around and visited a few places, but I’m having trouble finding the right mix of attributes for our family.

I’ve whittled down what we’re looking for to three things:

• We need to be able to afford it.
• We need to be able to trust it.
• And it needs to be available.

And in this situation, best two-out-of-three ain’t gonna cut it.

For the most part, of course, I’m going to be your daily caregiver. The way I work is particularly conducive to being an ‘at-home daddy,’ and I’m excited and eager to begin this part of my life. But there are going to be times (like last week when I was called to the mines) when we’re going to need to have someone we trust to care for you.

Most of my friends who have children have family nearby. But our closest relative, your Great Uncle Dave, lives five hours away. And though we’d love for Dave to be your nanny (as it happens, he was the first person you ever smiled at) I just don’t think you’re quite ready to smoke, drink and gamble that much.

This much I know for sure: We will never leave you in the care of anyone who doesn’t feel like family to us. You are too valuable and your company is too precious to simply give to anyone.

Love,
dad