The Daddy Diaries

Posted by Justin

I love being a daddy. It is so much fun. Nancy signed me up for a parenting class, "Daddy Boot Camp," before Hazel was born. I learned so much in that class. It helped me with some essential skills, like burping and cleaning, that would have been so difficult without the class. In fact, I challenge any dad to a swaddling and soothing contest, because I think that I'm basically unstoppable at this point. Thank you, Nancy, for getting me into that class!

I thought I would share some of my favorite moments from the past five days.

1) When Hazel was first born, doctors attended to Nancy in order to complete the birthing process. I played with Hazel in the baby warmer. It was incredible to see how responsive she was to my voice. She soothed right down whenever she heard me.

2) Hazel wasn't the world's greatest sleeper at first. She would sleep all day, but then at night had to be held. I did some experimentation on her our first night at home. I was trying to figure out what the "limiting reagent" was in her sleep problem. After Nancy fed her, I rocked her, put her to sleep, then slowly put her in the crib. By slow, I mean really slow. I've been doing some stretching exercises the past few months, so I spent about 5 minutes bent completely in half as I just held her in the bassinet. Then I just touched her tummy for a while. All was well and she slept. Then I rocked the bassinet. Still fine. But when I stopped paying attention to her and stopped rocking, she woke up. After much repetition, I found that her tolerance for being unattended was only four minutes.

I discussed this problem with my very helpful in-laws, who have been a great assistance to us this week during their visit. My father in law suggested that I tie a string off on the bassinet, then use the string to rock her from a distance. Bingo. That was brilliant. During one of our long nights, I played our new Nintendo Wii with one hand while rocking her with the other.

3) Finally, I just like being with Hazel. She's fun. I sing to her all the time, making up the lyrics as I go along. We have a goal to sing through the hymn book in the next few weeks. Also, I teach her how to spell words, like "machine" and "wreck." I think she'll have those down next week.

Dino Hazel ROAAARRRR!