Ten ways to get your baby to smile at you

23Oct08

After six to eight weeks of short breaks of silence as the only reward for good parenting, you begin to develop a bad attitude. You start calling your child names – at first innocuous ones, like “meanie” or maybe even “jerk,” but you quickly progress to inappropriate terms like “dickhead” and “ungrateful rat bastard.” Your […]

Filed under: Infancy, Month 2, Month 3, Tips   |  22 Comments
Tags: fatherhood, infant tips, laughing baby, make your baby smile, parenthood, smiling, smiling babies, ten tips, tips for babies, when do babies smile

How to calm your baby like Darth Vader

11Oct08

Okay, so I think we’ve finally gotten to the point, more or less, where we know how to keep Buster from going postal on us. There’s so much out there written about calming babies I realize there’s a lot of good places to go for information, but I think I’ve adopted and adapted the best […]

Filed under: Infancy, Month 1, Month 2, Tips   |  19 Comments
Tags: baby crying, calming baby, crying baby, fatherhood, how-to, infant tips

24: the baby version

19Sep08

The following events take place in real time… over the course of 24 minutes. Kiefer Sutherland was not harmed in the making of this blog post. 7:37PM Buster is happy and alert. He’s watching his father as he plays piano. Dad feels a rush of pride that Buster seems to enjoy music a great deal. […]

Filed under: Infancy, Month 1, Month 2, Tips   |  14 Comments
Tags: 24, baby crying, calming baby, fatherhood, how-to, kiefer sutherland, tantrums, tough love

The world’s most demanding boss

16Sep08

I’ve worked for some real jerks before. During a three-week stint as a KFC employee as a teenager, I had a manager who, other than during the job interview, communicated with me only by screaming in high-pitched broken English. During college summers, I worked for a union boss who could just look at you sideways […]

Filed under: Infancy, Month 1, Month 2, Tips   |  22 Comments
Tags: colic, crying baby, demanding bosses, drill sergeant, fatherhood

Gazongas!

23Aug08

I can’t really hold back anymore. I have to talk about them. There’s no way that you’re not wondering about them if you’re a dad-to-be. Your friends have probably told you about what happens. If you’re like me, and your wife was never all that busty, you may think it won’t really be that big […]

Filed under: Infancy, Month 1, Tips   |  9 Comments
Tags: boobies, breastfeeding, breasts, fatherhood

They mean well. I think.

16Aug08

I’m running up the basement stairs, with an extra lilt in my step. It is 9PM and I’ve just locked the back door. I’m about to be alone with my wife and Buster. As I skip with glee toward the main floor, my wife locks the front door and rests her back on it. She […]

Filed under: Infancy, Month 1, Tips   |  4 Comments
Tags: advice for new parents, fatherhood, first week of infancy, grandparents, infancy

The first five days

12Aug08

It’s incredibly tempting to give you the minute details of the first five days of my son’s life. It’s been incredible. Words of description lag by miles behind the joy. I’ve seen my wife as never before. I’ve seen myself as never before. In the shining grey pools of Buster’s eyes, I’ve seen promise, destiny, […]

Filed under: Doctors, Infancy, Month 1, Tips   |  6 Comments
Tags: fatherhood, first week of infancy, infants, newborns, parenthood

It’s better when I talk back to the voices

09Aug08

I am currently teetering on the edge of consciousness. I am still processing the four days that have passed in the last 25 seconds. Or vice versa. I am not returning people’s congratulatory phone calls and emails for fear they will think I am wasted. Don’t get me wrong – I am having a great […]

Filed under: Infancy, Month 1, Tips   |  2 Comments
Tags: epiphanies, fatherhood, first week of parenthood, infant care, new baby, newborns

Oh man oh man oh BOY

07Aug08

Our healthy baby boy was delivered yesterday afternoon via C-section, and everything is great with Mom too. I am so very grateful. He is 7 lbs. 9 oz., and 19 inches long – not at all puny, I should note. What I shouldn’t note is the giant set of balls on the kid. But once […]

Filed under: Doctors, Month 1, Tips   |  14 Comments
Tags: birth, buster, c-section, caesarean section, delivery, fatherhood, it's a boy, new baby, she-ra

Yes, sir. Of course I respect safety, sir.

12Jul08

I just got a call back from the local police officer who runs the car seat safety check. (You can find yours here.) I had left a message on his voicemail according to instructions that had been listed there a previous week – to call “midday” on a certain day this month. I think I […]

Filed under: Infancy, Month 1, Tips   |  1 Comment
Tags: car seat, car seat safety, fatherhood, safety, safety officer