Elora's New Room

With the new baby coming later this year, my wife and I decided to move Elora into a new room. The theme: butterflies.

We managed to complete most of the work this past Saturday with a lot of help from Bess’ parents. Now my daughter has an actual bed to sleep on rather than a crib, although it’s still a very small bed. Since nothing seems to dim Elora’s mood except for teething, she was naturally excited about the change. If she could elaborate clearly about it, I think she would say, “Nursery, shmursery; this new room rocks!”

Still, it was a bittersweet dad moment for me. I’m glad to see my daughter growing up, but it’s hard to realize she’s no longer a baby. It’s probably only a matter of time before the butterflies are replaced by the next age-appropriate theme, and one day that room will be empty. Bess and I were married for years before we had kids, and even though I’ve only been a dad for around eighteen months, it’s like it’s all I’ve known. I hope the butterflies stay around for a long time.

Toddler Fun

At some point recently, my daughter became a toddler. She can run, open cabinet doors, unspool rolls of toilet paper and bring terror to our cats in her excitement to play with them.

Elora loves going outside now, and we run around sporadically in the backyard. I tried to teach her to play tag, but she doesn’t grasp that concept and remains “it” constantly. The grass is less scary for her than it was several months ago, but when she falls, she still likes for me to pick her up rather than pushing herself up off the ground.

One of Elora’s favorite outdoor items is her tricycle. She’s not big enough to make the pedals turn, but she doesn’t care. The tricycle has a detachable pole in the back that I can use for pushing and steering (though sometimes I have to compensate for Elora jerking the natural handlebars). Together, we go up and down the sidewalks, and she waves to everyone she sees like she’s a parade princess.

It’s hard to see my baby turning into a little girl, but we have so much fun together. It warms my heart when I come home to see her because she runs up to me and shouts, “Matt!” (Once she found out my name, “Dad” slid by the wayside, and I haven’t been able to change my identification back yet.) My toddler is a blast.

Living with an Alien

As I considered the behaviors of my thirteen-month-old daughter the other day, it seemed to me that living with her is in many ways how it would be to live with an alien from outer space.

There is a language gap between us. I use common English, while Elora blabbers in a type of speech that consists of short consonant sounds, clicks and raspberries. Sometimes we’re able to agree on a certain word or even give the same sign for it, but when I ask yes or no questions, the response always sounds negative (usually “Nah” or “Nuh”).

Elora also has no understanding of what various objects are. The other day, she took a napkin from the table, so my wife demonstrated how to use one. My daughter brought the napkin to her mouth and proceeded to eat it. I think she has few classifications for items right now, and the default categorization for new items is that they must be food. “What is this? I think I should eat it.”

If science-fiction has taught me anything, it is that 90% of the time, aliens are hostile, often for no particular reason. Elora displays considerable peace until her wishes are refused. When the tantrums start, I’m glad she doesn’t carry a ray-gun. She also enjoys chaos: emptying all orderly drawers and cabinets, spreading toys across multiple rooms and knocking down any towers that I build from her blocks.

Though she has commonalities with sci-fi aliens, Elora is a wonderful little girl, and no alien could ever touch my heart quite as much as her. Sorry E.T.

Sharing the Germs

It isn’t much fun to be sick at the same time as my wife, mostly because neither of us can wait on the other. Add a sick baby in the mix, and things become even more interesting.

A couple of weeks ago, I had one of those, “Oh, I guess I’m a parent,” moments when we took my daughter to the pediatric emergency room. She wasn’t quite to a fever, but she hadn’t kept much food down at all that day. It took us three hours to see a doctor because the plague seemed to have hit most of the community’s youth, although I was a little annoyed by the illness’s apparent symptoms of running around and shouting.

Once we saw a doctor at 1 AM, our daughter’s digestive tract flushed itself upon my wife with a gooey fanfare. Our daughter had a change of clothes on hand; my wife didn’t. After learning of this latest event, the doctor recommended we be admitted to the hospital for overnight observation.

I drove home to pack some things for us and started back to the hospital at 4:30. I hadn’t slept for a long time, and driving was quite perilous. At one point, I was certain there was a man running along the side of the highway at the same rate as my car; he turned out to be the antenna.

Our daughter’s temperature relented during the wee hours, and she was finally able to keep some food down. Apparently, she had cried so much from being sick that her stomach had filled with gas, and that was the reason for all the vomiting. Her temperature did fluctuate a little over the next week, and she’s still a bit congested to this day, but overall she’s doing much better.

My wife was sick at the same time as my daughter. I came on board with the illness a few days later (probably from a lack of sleep). Things could have been much worse, of course, and these events weren’t unmanageable. I simply had no idea how dynamic parenting is.

My Daughter is Born!

I received the best Christmas gift ever when my daughter, Elora, was born on the morning of the 25th. I know I’m biased, but she is the most beautiful baby in the world.

My wife started having strong contractions at 2 in the morning, and after waiting at home for a while, we went to the hospital around 5. By 9:30, we had our daughter. For a first-time mom, this was an extremely short span of time for labor.

This change in my life is showing me aspects of God that I didn’t realize before, especially His relationship between Him and us. My daughter is teaching me quite a bit about selflessness and love, and I wonder at God’s patience with us.

Not long after my daughter was born, we discovered that she had jaundice, so the hospital staff would take her into the nursery for several hours at a time to place her under the bili-lights that would break down the extra hemoglobin in her body so that she could pass it back out of her system. Each time they would return with her, my wife and I would get so excited. I think this is a glimpse of how God feels about people who accept Christ, when they declare that they want to be with Him. There’s such excitement that the heavens erupt in celebration.

This really is an amazing time for my wife and me, and I’ll do my best to cherish these moments while they last. Everyone says that children grow up so fast, and I will not be so foolish as to think otherwise.