Toy Story

Here’s how dictionary.com defines “toy:”

toy – noun

1. an object, often a small representation of something familiar, as an animal or person, for children or others to play with; plaything.

2. a thing or matter of little or no value or importance; a trifle.

3. something that serves for or as if for diversion, rather than for serious practical use.

It’s funny as I look at the definitions, how the order is the exact order in which I have felt about toys in my lifetime. As a kid, my life was all about my toys. In fact, there were two things that drove me; What toys I had and what toys I was going to get. In the beginning, I liked just about anything I could get my hands on. But, as mentioned in the first description, if it is something familiar, like an animal, then it had more meaning. Which is probably why I still have the Winnie the Pooh Grandma Ella gave me when I was five.

But as I got older toys changed from little shiny things to big shiny things. Cars, stereos, TVs. All of which, in the long run, fit into description number two. Which brings us to definition three. Which is where I am with toys, today.

When Finley was born, we had no need for toys. She had no way of knowing what they were or what they did. She couldn’t hold on to them or really even see them for that matter. Which is why most of the parenting books say kids don’t need toys until about six months. So, now that we’re at month seven, her once empty toy box is now crammed with somewhat soft and brightly colored noisemakers. And that’s what they are, in their simplest form; noisemaking light shows.

In the store, I pore over the different toys to see what sort of educational value they hold. I’m sure that as she gets older, some of these toys will hold true to their enlightening ways. But for now, toys in Finley’s world need to have flashing lights, music, voices, or be able to be chewed on. A toy that falls into all of those categories is a a bonus.

We’ve got the “smart” toys. Those are the ones that have a voice explaining what’s happening in English, French and Spanish. Most likely, this includes the name of the color that is currently flashing and/or whichever letter in the alphabet is also flashing.

We’ve got a rabbit that laughs and is very descriptive about its ears, nose and feet. And there’s a turtle that asks our Little Einstein™ to press the appropriate colorful, lit-up shape on its shell.

And then there is what I refer to as “The Space Capsule.” The actual name is “Excersaucer,” but it is more of a cockpit surrounded by every single sensory stimulation device known to man. Basically, the subject is lowered into a padded seat that dangles them mere centimeters above the floor of the capsule. The seat is designed to spin, so that our subject can experience a full 360-degrees of sensory overload. The full-circle dashboard contains objects of silly design, supported by springs or any number of pliable and stretchable stands. These objects, of course, are meant to be chewed and slobbered on and make some sort of sound, battery-induced or not. This toy… this capsule, is the ultimate kiddie distraction.

And that’s what toys are. They’re diversions. Some have practical and educational purposes. Many kids develop a love for building and design from playing with erector sets and Legos™. And there are those kids who turn a fascination with toy musical instruments into a career. But, in my first run-through as a toy-buying parent, I am beginning to see toys as not much more than battery sucking, song repeating, tripping hazards.

The makers of these toys are geniuses, of course, because they know what they’re doing. They know that the more noise the toys make and the brighter the lights are, combined with a song repeated over and over and over, will not only drive the parents nuts, but send the kids into a gleeful spasm. And that’s what it’s all about.

We will gladly suffer the same song over and over and over for days if it keeps the kid happy and distracted. As long as the baby is holding on to a musical teething ring or enthralled in the capsule, we can throw a load of clothes in the laundry or wash a few dishes. In this way, distractions are good. We can get things done when the kids are distracted. Then, once the baby is in bed, mom and dad can cuddle on the couch and watch TV.

Air Finley

Last Friday was Finley’s six-month checkup. Like all the other checkups before, it consisted of the weighing and measuring of our little girl. And, like all the others before, it ended with a few needles finding their way into her little legs. To her credit, she took the shots like a champ and only cried a little bit.

Other than the promise of health via immunizations, the more notable news from the visit to Dr. Zimburean was related to the weight and measurement department. Finley weighed in at a healthy 17lbs, 10oz (80^th percentile) and measured 27-1/8 inches long (90^th) percentile. The latter measurement caused Dr. Z to comment that “she is very tall for her age.” Very tall for her age?

So I start calculating. If she’s 2 feet 3 inches at six months, and she’s grown a little over an inch each month, then she should be nearly three feet tall when she turns one. And, according to more outrageous daddy math, THAT would mean by the time she’s 15, she’ll be easily 6’-3” – 6’-5” tall (Give or take a few feet, but that has nothing to do with this ramble).

Suddenly visions of the WNBA begin to enter my realm. Of course, this flies against my Team USA softball plans and her pro golf career. But, it’s a little more realistic than my goal to see her be the first female quarterback in the NFL. Then again, at 6’-5”, she would have no problem seeing over the offensive line. Peyton Manning is 6’-5” and has a name that could work for a girl or a boy, too.

Of course, the shoe deal she gets will only help her modeling career. But, that’s only when she has time from her charity work and when she’s not busy saving lives at the hospital or saving the planet from greenhouse gases. And, if her momma had her way, there would be a ballet career and possibly a country music tour to throw in.

Ask Finley in a few years what she wants to be when she grows up and my guess is she would choose something along the lines of a princess/veterinarian. And, like all of us, those ideas of career goals change. I was going to be a detective and an oceanographer. No doubt, solving underwater crimes involving sea creatures. I changed my mind to journalism and pretty much stayed with that for most of my life.

It will be interesting to see what Finley will become. I’m sure there will be a few things she’ll try and decide not to continue. I have piano lessons and wrestling in my past. But there are also the things we dabble in. The things that we may not have seen all the way through, but still resonate in our lives. There’s all the time I spent in boy scouts and my five years in band. There’s a year or so in martial arts and the semester I spent in choir in college. And although I may regret not getting my Eagle Scout or a black belt, I apply many of the things I’ve learned from all of those endeavors into my life. And that’s really what it’s all about. Experience.

Finley may not like basketball. She may even hate it. She might not want to learn how to throw a curveball or work on her putting. She may care next to nothing about leading a receiver or laying down a bunt and that’s okay. I just want her to try it. Just once. She may find joy in sports or she may decide that it could ruin her nails. As long as she tries.

In the long run, I just want her to experience as many things as possible. If ballet trumps baseball, then so be it. If she’d rather dance than dribble, that’s okay too. She can do anything she wants and I’m here to let her know that. That doesn’t mean I won’t buy her a glove. And it certainly doesn’t mean she won’t play catch with her old man in the backyard when she’s home from saving the planet.

Nose Woes

Somewhere the nose gods are content. And somewhere, shareholders of the Kleenex™ Company are smiling. The torch, or in this case, the tissue, has been passed from mother to son. You see, my daughter, like me, is literally a snot-nosed kid.

In Finley’s short little life she has learned a few things; she’s learned how to roll. She’s learned how to grab and hold toys. And she’s learned how to turn her head from side to side in defiance when the snot rag goes for the face. She’s a tiny, smiling ball of mucus producing joy and she’s just like her old man.

You see, most of my early memories consist of a hand with a Kleenex™ in it, thrusting toward my nose. My mom or sisters would chase me down and rub my honker raw. I absolutely hated it. As I got older I learned to give in and blow into the tissue, or as it turned out, several hundreds of thousands of tissues. This was the late ‘60s and early ‘70s… BEFORE the “aloe-infused” or “soft” days. This was one-grade above T.P. and one-grade below the paper towel stuff. My nose was so red, I looked more like Rudolph than Randall. And now there’s a certain little girl with a runny nose and a certain dad with tissue in hand. We haven’t graduated to having to chase her down, just yet.

Heather is convinced it’s just a sniffle. That it’s a small cold all kids get when they go to daycare. In fact, we read somewhere that in the first year of daycare, most kids get twelve colds and the parents end up with six. Two weeks ago, Heather got her first and I wound up with it last week. Oh, the joys of daycare!

Of course Finley has been the carrier in our family. All those little ones, crawling around, chewing on toys and each other… If Heather had her way, she’d send Finley to school in a space suit. But, reality says that exposing her to germs at this age will actually help her develop a tolerance and keep her from being really sick, later. We’ll let you know how that goes. Meanwhile, mom sterilizes every toy, article of clothing and exposed skin that Finley brings home.

But none of that can help the fact that our little princess has the sniffs and the snorts, especially at night. She gets so clogged up that we have to give her saline nose drops, which she hates. And as I watch her struggle against the drops and the wipes, I can only tell her how much I feel for her. Daddy has been there and, unfortunately, still visits the land of sniffles a little too often. And although Heather is probably right and Finley may just have a cold, I have a feeling I’ve passed on “The Curse of the Schnoz.”

I’m not sure if I desecrated some nose-honoring temple in a past life, but I have paid the price with my nasal and sinus passages since the beginning. I had my adenoids removed with my tonsils only to see the adenoids grow back. I’ve had my sinuses nearly explode on long plane flights. I’ve even had surgery where they drilled to make my nasal passages bigger. So, now I feel a little pang of guilt when I have to wipe that little girl’s nozzle.

I want to tell her that her nose isn’t angry with her. I want to tell her that it’s just the body’s way of getting all the bad stuff out of her nostrils. And, I want to tell her that it will all go away. But daddy nose better. Daddy remembers going to get his tonsils out when he was little and winding up staying in the hospital for a few days because he stopped breathing during the operation. Daddy remembers getting the nose drilling and having the equivalent of a pair of rubber gloves stuffed with gauze jammed up his beak.

Of course, she’s only six-and-a-half months old, so she may not have actually developed daddy’s nose problems(Well, at least I’m hoping). So, I won’t pass along my sniffer stories quite yet. But, if those cranky nose gods decide to bestow daddy’s curse upon her, you have to believe that the best person to go to for a wipe will be me. I will have the gentlest of hands with the softest tissue out there. But more importantly, I will sympathize with her. Because daddy knows.

Labor Day

So, since this is a holiday and I get to take a day off, I thought it might be good to re-live our own very special “labor day” that happened six months ago. As I read through this account again, I remembered a few things that weren’t mentioned, before. I remember Heather’s mom coming to be with us and being very patient and very quiet. She wasn’t there to tell Heather what to do or how to do it… She was just there to be there… Which was perfect.

I remember Heather getting the epidural and finally relaxing and Heather’s mom heading out to the lobby to get some rest… And then less than five minutes later running out to get her because the baby was on the way!

I remember holding Heather’s hand and counting then looking from her face to the tiny head making it’s way out and believing in miracles. And I remember thinking how tiny and perfect she was… is. And now, six months later, she’s not so little, but still pretty perfect.

Enjoy!

rd

Being There

It's just over 24 hours since the birth of my daughter and I'm running on a cross between sleep deprivation, caffeinated beverages and pure joy. Mama and baby are sleeping soundly and I find myself a bit hyper, so I'll jot some thoughts down to get me to fall asleep. The past few days' blogs are a bit rushed, and I'm sure you understand why, so I'll try to fill in some gaps.

The curtain rose on our little symphony at about midnight on Thursday. Heather had been having a few Braxton-Hicks or "practice" contractions earlier in the evening and I joked, like I always do, that "THIS IS THE BIG ONE!" Then she'd shoot me that look. The one I know so well. It's how she says "you're an idiot" without opening her mouth. I think most husbands know it. After a few of the practice contractions you don't think much, because, well, they're practice. As we're getting into bed for the evening, she suddenly grabbed the side of the bed and shot me a new look. This one was definitely not "you're an idiot." This one was part terror, part pain and part "THIS IS NOT A DRILL!" Now, if you've been reading the blog, you know I wrote about wondering what it all would be like when it happens. How would I react? What would I say? And I had been hoping to come up with some eloquent or profound statement about the impending arrival of my daughter. So, what did I do? I threw up. Yep. Daddy hurled. It was something about the look Heather gave me. Something about the "this is really happening" vibe in the air. I thought it might have been something about the Mexican dinner we had, but it was just good ol' nerves.

I figured it was because all this time I had been so proud to play the strong one, the knowledgeable one. The daddy. But when it came down to it, I was just as scared as the next person. And that's okay. Besides, as I was about to find out, no person is stronger than my wife was for the next 48 hours.

After my quick trip to the washroom and a giggle between us, Heather and I attempted to get the last rest we would probably get... ever. She had some smaller contractions as the night progressed. Nothing too major.

That morning, we got up and Heather went to her already-scheduled doctor appointment. Doctor Tsang (pronounced "Jung"), is a very small, to-the-point Chinese woman who told Heather that she was 3cm dilated and would be surprised if we didn’t have a baby over the weekend. So, what did Heather do? She went to work. That's right. It was her last day before her leave, anyway, so she needed to tidy things up at work. Contractions and all. I think she's crazy. But then again, she married me.

Friday evening progressed with a few contractions and me finishing packing my bags. Heather, on the other hand, had been packed for almost two weeks. She's VERY organized, as many of you know. She likes to make a schedule and stick to it. So does her daughter, as we were about to find out. That night's sleep was decent. A few contractions here and there, until about 3am. That's when I awoke to the sound of my wife whimpering and the sight of her on all fours, clutching at her back. This was the first of FOUR heartbreaking moments I would experience.

I have had my share of back pain and those of you who know what it's like know that it is excruciating. It's the only pain I have ever had that has driven me to my knees, crying. My wife was now experiencing the exact same thing. And in a few hours she would be experiencing it almost every five minutes.

In the birthing class you learn about "breathing." About cleansing breaths and short, sharp pain-buffering breaths. It's really about focusing. Letting yourself relax around the pain and getting through it. My job was to keep her focused. To remind her to breathe and encourage her. And it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through.

So that was Saturday. Every five to ten minutes Heather would get a contraction that would last between a minute and a minute and a half. And I would do my best to help her through it. Unfortunately, she was suffering pain in her back and not really feeling anything in her stomach/uterus area. At first we thought it was because the baby might be facing the wrong way and the back of her head was pressing against Heather's tailbone. But we would find out it was for a different, and in the long run, better reason.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the contractions weren't consistent enough to get us to the hospital. Then her water broke. We zipped to Evergreen and got set up with our Bulgarian nurse, Boriana. She was very attentive and helpful and worked with Heather to try to alleviate the pain. It was just too much. At about 10pm Saturday night Heather leaned to me and said she just couldn't take it, anymore. Then came heartbreaking moment number 2. With tear-filled eyes she said, "I'm sorry." Are you kidding me? What did she have to feel sorry about?

Heather wanted to go as far as she could without medication and I was behind her 100%. But I also wanted her to be as comfortable as possible and what she had been going through for nearly 13 hours was far from that. She had done her time in labor. She deserved some relief.

The epidural came at 10:30pm and she finally began to relax. This also allowed Boriana a better chance to find out how the baby was doing. It turned out that our little girl wasn't facing the wrong way. The reason Heather was in so much back pain was because Finley had actually worked her way down inside the birth canal. In fact, she was ready to be born. We were just waiting on the dilation. It also turns out that her water had probably broke much earlier than when we noticed. It's just that her had was so far in place, that it acted like a cork and didn't let any of the fluid out.

Once they determined that Finley was close, they hooked Heather up to Pitocin. This is a birth-inducing drug that helps speed up dilation. And boy, did it. When Heather got the epidural she was dilated at 5cm. Within an hour of getting Pitocin, she was at 9cm and ready to go.

And that's when the show started. In came the extra nurses, the lights and the machine that goes "bing." And in came Dr. Tsang, the conductor, all dressed and ready to go.

There are many reasons why I was glad to be there, but one I didn't expect was to play translator for Heather. Heather's contractions were now become pushes and it all had to be choreographed. The doctor had to keep track of everything and relay that info to the main nurse who would tell Heather what she needed to do. Not too complicated, right? Remember, the doctor is Chinese and the main nurse is Bulgarian. In a feat of translation not seen since Versailles, I was able to coach Heather through the next thirty minutes and heartbreaking moment number three.

This is when my wife became my hero. Finley's middle name is Ella, which is in honor of my Grandmother who was really the only grandparent I ever knew. Once, when I was little, I asked her what it was like to have a baby. She said it was "like crapping a watermelon." Now you know where I get my sense of humor. I don't pretend to guess what it was like for Heather in that thirty minute time frame. I don't want to know. But after all the back pain and all the mental and physical stress, she somehow found a way to push that baby out. Grandma Ella would be proud.

At 12:22am, on March 11, 2007, Finley Ella Dickey entered our world. Technically, she was ready to go a few minutes before midnight, which means, like her mama, she stuck to her schedule. My friends, this was heartbreaking moment number four. And you dads out there know what I mean. I saw my daughter being born. I watched as she took her first breath. And I held her as her little cloudy eyes looked up at me. What was that first thought that I had been waiting for? One word: Beautiful. I think I had been wondering so much about what it was going to be like and what it was going to feel like, that I didn't realize what she would look like. She looks like every dream I ever had that I wanted to come true. She looks like the greatest story I've ever written. She looks like perfection.

And now, 24 hours later, as I hear her gurgles and whimpers I wonder some new things. I wonder what she's going to be when she grows up. I wonder how I could ever love anything or anyone more than my wife and my baby. And without being too political, I wonder how we could get the world leaders to watch a birth every once in awhile. I can't see how you could go through this and want to ever hurt another soul. I guess from my point of view, we all need a few heartbreaking moments now and then, to keep us human.