One year already

Who knew a year could hold so much or go by so fast? I can hardly believe that it was only 13 months ago that I was going to the hospital in anticipation of our baby's arrival, not knowing how long she would take to arrive or even that she was a girl. I have to admit that I was surprised by my own strength and focus during the beginning labor stages: by the level of exhaustion that labor can cause; and by the wonderful numbness that can come from a spinal before a c-section. One of our first best moments was when Bailey and I got back to our room and it was just Eric and his 2 girls and we fed B for the first time and then Bailey and I snuggled and slept together for the first time.

Having the summer together as a family was such an immense blessing. The first few weeks were full of family and friends. I was and am so grateful for my new mommy friends who delivered meals to us the first few weeks we were home. Also, so grateful for both our moms who also helped with food and housework during the first few weeks. I wasn't sure how I would go back to work. But I went and, while it felt good to be busy and back to business, I still missed my baby girl.
The beginning of September, my job was cut at the YMCA, due to the economy. At the end of that week, Eric had an emergency appendectomy. I spent my first 2 weeks of unemployment taking care of both of my babies. While I have continued to search for a job, it seems to be quite elusive right now. So, as I couldn't find a job this past fall, I became more involved with the Defiance Mother's and More group. I have to say a BIG thank you to Kelly Tong and Alesha Switzer for convincing me to join. Without their persistence, I would have missed out on meals after Bailey was born, meeting a great group of women, making some of the most amazing friends, and having the opportunity to give back to the group by volunteering. I also have to thank the few women of the group who have become the most blessed friends I've been, well, blessed by. They are my friends, sisters, advisors, inspiration, and blessings. I love you and don't know what I would do without you. Thank you!

Bailey is such a joy. We are truly blest by such a wonderful, beautiful girl. Everyday I get to treasure seeing her grow and develop and learn. She now has 11.5 teeth, the 4 top front, the 4 bottom front, a molar on top on both sides, a molar on the bottom right, and a matching one trying to come in on the left. She can climb up and down the stairs on her own with great ease, she walks everywhere, and occasionally runs. She is close to mastering the shape sorter, loves watching Sesame Street, carries her Elmo dolls around the house, and sits in her princess chair like the true princess she is. Her smile is beautiful and her laugh is so full of joy that it almost makes me cry to hear it and feel her joy.
I can only imagine what adventures the rest of this summer will hold for us all. The summer started with Bailey's First Birthday. Mostly family and close friends came for our homemade burger bbq party with my first attempt at a birthday cake, which turned out wonderfully. Bailey was showered with love and presents and all had a great time.
Next was a visit from Jacob, Amy, and Kurt Hauser, which held Bailey's first encounter with a younger baby. Bailey did pretty well and only went for Kurt's eyes 2 or 3 times.
The next adventure was BG Men's Chorus Reunion, where Eric and I spent the weekend with Chrissy and CC Snyder while Bailey stayed home with Grandma West. Bailey did get to see the concert and enjoyed some of Mommy's favorite songs, performed by Daddy.
Then, we headed to Zanesville, where we enjoyed some time with Grandpa and Grandma and even got to spend an afternoon with other family. We got to eat Tom's ice cream, spent our afternoons in the little pool, ate Adornetto's pizza, and grabbed Donald's donuts on our way out of town. It was some much needed r&r for the family.

Bailey then got to enjoy her first annual Grandma Camp for 4 days, when Eric and I went to the Kierland Westin Resort in Scottsdale, AZ for Eric to attend a yearbook conference. I got to try some fabulous food that I had been dying to try for a long time, spent some time relaxing by the pool, and had some wonderful dinners and evenings with Eric. But we missed our Bailey girl, who came to see us right away in the morning and gave us both such great hugs that we are determined to spend some quality time at home with her for the next few weeks.

I hope that this will not be the only blog from the West family this year, as we seem to have fallen behind in our blogging. Hopefully you have enjoyed this update and maybe it will be the first of many for this year. Blessings to all!

Bailey Encounters the Snow

Thank you Dr=Supermom wins

I have always viewed my trips to the doctor in a good/bad light, which I'm sure most people do also. While I am generally not happy to be there, I usually walk away feeling happy that I have gotten some answers and will soon be feeling better. It also helps that my doctor and his nursing staff TOTALLY ROCK! No matter what has ailed me, they've been great. I especially was happy when they squeezed me in on a Wednesday last September so that I could pee in a cup and find out that the stick didn't lie and I was pregnant!

I try to view Bailey's well-baby checks in the same light. I'm always so excited to see how much she weighs, how tall she is, what all her measurements are, etc. I love showing her off to the nursing staff and doctors; showing them how beautiful she is and how much new stuff she is mastering. However, then comes the part I hate - the shots. Again, I try to view this in a good/bad light. I'm grateful that 1) I don't have to give them to her myself, 2) that they are boosting her immune system and helping her to be healthy and fight weird diseases, 3) that they have gotten smart enough to combine some of them to reduce the number of shots babies have to get, and finally 4) that they give her the shots at the exact same time so that it isn't pain, comfort, more pain, and more comfort, which brings me to the main point of my blog.

Thank you doctors for setting up the well baby checks on milestone months so that mom's can remember how old their children are. I know how old my baby is but I actually sat down to count how many weeks old she is, in case someone asks, cause I've been just estimating to the closest month.

Thank you doctors for making yourself or your nursing staff out to be the bad guy. Every 2 months or so you become the bad guy and give my daughter shots and pain to commemorate her turning a few months older and every few months Supermom gets to come to the rescue with hugs, kisses, cuddles, the binkie, favorite toys, and the favorite food or maybe a sneak of something sweet. Every 2 months, in a world where Bailey is becoming more and more Daddy's little girl, Supermom still wins out on Dr day with the comfort factor.
So, I say Thank you Dr = Supermom wins.

Baby Plots

Eric and I knew that Bailey would change our lives in many various and indescribable ways. We expected to be servants to her every wants and needs, as she is unable to do so herself. We knew we would be changing our schedules to have more family time together. However, we didn't know the extent of her powers until this last week.

On Monday, August 31st, Bailey masterminded that my position at the YMCA be eliminated, due to a bad budget year. I was given the option to finish my week at work or not return after that meeting. I decided to finish the week so I would be paid for the week and keep my insurance for another month and started looking for jobs that night. I applied for an administrative assistant position at the college and hoped for the best. On Tuesday, I conducted a phone interview for the aforementioned job and set up an actual interview for Friday.

On Wednesday, I was working late and when I arrived at home Eric wasn't feeling well. We thought maybe it was a UTI. So I bought 128 oz of cranberry juice which Eric chugged over 12 hours and did not help. So we thought it was an intestinal issue and tried Ex-lax, which apparently really does taste like chocolate.

On Friday, I spent the morning with Bailey before getting ready for my interview. Bailey went with Grandma Nicely to the dance studio and I went to my interview. I thought everything went well and they told me they would let me know either way sometime next week. So I headed home to file for unemployment, so I could at least get paid while I job searched and then changed my clothes to walk to the studio to get Bailey. While I don't understand the reasoning for her next manuever, we still attribute it to her. As I came down the steps at the studio and hit the wet paint on the landing, I slipped and fell on my butt and smacked my back on the bottom step and ruined my favorite jeans. I'm guessing that was her punishment

for the interview.

On Saturday, Bailey's plan for Eric's appendix to explode came to fruition as he went to Urgentcare to get it checked out at 9am and was in surgery at DRMC by 1pm. This

provided Bailey with 2-4 weeks of Daddy time while he recovers from the surgery.

Finally, on the following Friday, Bailey's plans for more Mommy time were completed when the college called to say that she did not get the job.

They say that "Men plan, God laughs." Well, I say, "Parents plan, Babies plot, Babies conquer all."

Episode I

"Birth to Mirth"

The Daddy Button

If you've known me for any amount of time greater than the past 10 months you'll probably have heard me say.....from time to time.....in a completely offhanded way....that I didn't want to have kids.

Now, before you get your outrage pants on let me just state for the record that I am one hundred percent completely devoid of any feelings of uncertainty regarding my current status as a father. Bailey is the best thing that's happened to me which is kind of the focus of this article.

So let me explain.

My apprehension at becoming a father existed on many different levels. I had a plethora of unsuccessful relationships prior to meeting Jessica. I had, in fact, become so unsuccessful in love that I had absolutely given up. For one year I dated no one. And then met my wife. I was 30 when we married so level one of apprehension is the fact that it took me over a third of my life just to find a wife, why would I want to rush into having kids. I'd like to enjoy having a wife for a while.

Of course that reasoning only lasts so long, especially with grandchildless parents. Three years later the questions started getting flung around like poo in a monkey cage. My answer and reasoning rotated between that I'm getting up in years and didn't want to be an "old" dad or .... I put up with plenty of crap in my job, why do it at home. There's also the fact that I require a certain amount of solitude in order to function as a human and although my wife understands and abides, a child would not.

Level two of apprehension.

But the real paranoia set in not long after my wife showed me the stick....


That's my couch and that's the two bars that changed my life.

I could seriously mess this up. I've seen it done. I actually know people that are really great people but I think they screwed their kids up. Now I have my chance. Where's the button one presses to go into Daddy Mode? Some creatures have it built in. Daddy Cardinals have brighter plumage to attract predators away from their children. Daddy penguins sit on their eggs all winter to nurture their progeny to life. Hell, my wife got to have nine months all to herself as her body transformed into a life giving and life sustaining vehicle. And after....well, she was the sole source of nourishment and still is the majority of the time.

When does a daddy become a daddy?

How ..... does a daddy become a daddy?

Level three.

I find it all rather amusing. How it works. Life. Most of us ask ourselves questions all the time. Not aloud. Not to anyone else. We ask them to the sky or to the river or to the plastic fake owl in our front yard. We aren't looking for someone to answer us. "Where will we ever get the money?" "How am I going to get through the next week?" "What do I do now?"

"How the hell am I supposed to be a father?"

It amuses me that we all ask these questions and never expect anyone to answer but then the answer happens ..... and most of the time we don't recognize that the question was even acknowledged let alone answered. We don't realize that most of the answers are simply a passage of time. We move through it and move past it and the answer happened. The week passed, the money either showed up or didn't, you moved on and your now asking a different set of questions.

I consider myself lucky to have recognized the answer to my daddy question although I should've missed it. It was a fraction of a second. It was subtle. It wasn't meant to be reckoned with or recognized for what it was.

Someone hit the Daddy Button.

Of course, seeing Bailey brought into this world was awe inspiring. Holding her for the first time melted my heart but those moments didn't click anything paternal inside me. They were sentimental and emotional and I felt things I never felt before but that wasn't the Daddy Button. That was just the...."Awe, shucks" button.

It happend on our second night in the hospital. My wife and I had been getting to know Bailey and showing her off to all the relatives and friends but they had all left and it was just us. The nurse walked in and asked if we were ready to have Bailey get her Hepatitis shot. Sure. Why not. It's what's supposed to be done.

The nurse offered to let me tag along and I thought fine. I'll do that.

Now up until this point Bailey had been a pretty normal newborn. She fussed when she was hungry and fussed when she was messy. She cried like hell when we had to take her clothes off and give her a bath but it wasn't anything other than just a person (a tiny, tiny person) expressing their thoughts and desires in the only way known to them.

But the moment that nurse stuck the needle into my tiny daughter's leg she let out a cry like I've never heard before. My reaction only lasted a fraction of a fraction of a second. But in that tiny span of time I felt a rage and anger like nothing I'd ever felt before. My instinct was to punch the nurse in the face, take my child back to the room, pack our things and get the hell out of this sadistic and cruel hospital. I seriously felt extremely violent. Primally violent. I needed to protect my daughter. She was in pain and all I could think about was how to hurt the person causing her pain.

And then that moment passed almost as quickly as it flared up and reason set in. Of course shots hurt. I cry like an angry baby each time I have to get one. I held her in my arms and comforted her as best as I knew how. Eventually she forgot all about it but I didn't. That miniscule moment where my human nature let my animal nature take over has stuck with me for near a month now and I doubt I'll ever forget it. That nurse didn't know it but she pressed the Daddy Button and I now know how to be a daddy.

Of course I'm not saying I have all the answers and am now a perfect father because I wanted to, for a fraction of a second, rip a nurses limbs off and beat her down with them because she was the indirect cause of my daughter's pain. But I have a self-realization that the desire and ability to love and protect my offspring is now a part of my instinct. The most important part to have is there. Everything else I can pick up along the way or on the internet. I'm not worried now about how to be a daddy.....

.....but I am worried about the first poor schmuck that breaks her heart and sends her home

crying to daddy.

Did I mention ripping off limbs?

Bailey Confronts Paparazzi

Defiance, OH -- Bailey Katherine West has only existed for just over two weeks and has already had enough of the paparazzi as can be gathered by the photograph to the left (click photo to enlarge). Sources close to Bailey say that she abhors all the media attention and it has been getting in the way of her eating, sleeping and pooping. Although it doesn't really affect the pooping as she doesn't mind doing that anywhere at anytime in front of anyone.

The source continues by confirming that Bailey prefers to breast feed without being held captive under the privacy providing "hooter hider" and that when the paparazzi is around her "food-giver" covers her underneath the aforementioned, scientific device (blanket with a strap) thus depriving her of the pleasure of a completely uninhibited feeding experience.

When finally cornered and confronted about the photograph Bailey is quoted as saying, "if you have a problem with me being upset over my lack of privacy and how I choose to express that frustration then you can just...."

and then she pooped....and started crying.....and wanted to eat some more.....

......and then fell asleep.