Postscript

Thank you for reading this blog. This will be the last post on Changing Lyla, for I always meant it to be a one-year project. But after a lot of thought, I have decided to start a new blog. I'll keep it up as long as it's fun to write, and as long as I perceive that it's fun to read.

One thing. I'm making the new blog slightly more private because I'm no longer comfortable with complete strangers happening upon it. I need an extra layer of privacy to feel like I can write candidly.


So if you are a family member, friend, colleague, friend-of-friend, or acquaintance of either Julie or me, then I'd like to invite you to read the new blog. All you need is a Google account. You probably already have one. If not, then go to google.com and click on "sign in" in the upper-right corner. From there it should be easy to set up. So then email me the email address that serves as your Google account username, and I'll gratefully add you to the list of readers. You will then be able to log in to the new blog.

Sorry about this inconvenience. After the initial setup, it'll be smooth for you to log in, and you can even tell your computer to save your log-in information so you don't have to reenter it each time.


To sum up:

1. Set up a Google account.

2. Email me your Google account email address. Send it to me via text, Hotmail, school address, Facebook, or to my Gmail address, which is lylasdad@gmail.com.

3. Follow me to my new digs. I've named it Chasing Lyla, which I think aptly describes what I'll be up to this year.

Thank you so much for reading. I've written a proper post for today on the new blog.

One

Lyla is one. She's the girl who likes to open the dishwasher and shut herself in Daisy's cage. She's the girl who knows that cows go moo and that silly babies go blabble-abble. She's the girl who loves her mama more than anyone and binkies more than anything.

Look back:


This truly was the year of changing Lyla. She'll ask us one day what it was like when she was born, and I'll answer by repeating the first sentence I ever wrote on this blog: "With a newborn, you think about poop a lot."

"That's gross, Dad."

I'll give her everything I wrote. I'll say, "This is what you were like, and this is what we were like."

"Wow, I was cute."

"Yes."

"Do I have to read all this?"

"No. Just look at the pictures."

Eve

I remember this night a year ago. We had arrived at the hospital in the morning and by that night were half sleeping after the epidural. At 8:11 the next morning, Lyla triumphantly emerged. Everything happened so slowly, but so fast.

That's how this year has been. During my parenting leave, Lyla would spend 30 minutes drinking a 4-ounce bottle. Just getting her down for a nap some days felt like eternity. Everything took forever and yet again, in retrospect, time flew.

I wonder how tomorrow will feel. It's Lyla's birthday, yes, but let's be honest: this first one is really about us. It's about Julie doing all the work in that delivery room. It's about the nurse putting me in charge of Julie's left leg to make me feel useful. It's about becoming parents, that instant when everything else suddenly became less significant, that instant when our purposes in life were so utterly defined and in sync.

Sometimes non-parents complain that the only thing parents want to do is talk about their kids.

You're damn right they do.

Bumper

Lyla has decided that she knows how to run. I wonder if this elevated sense of ability will follow her throughout life. I hope so. What better way to learn how to do something than to just start doing it?

It is important to note, however, that Lyla's current proficiency level as a runner is approximately my level as a snowboarder. Which is to say that she falls down a lot and crashes into things.

Did you get a good look at that face? She has a purple bruise above her eyebrow, various yellowish bruises on her forehead, and a gash on her cheek. The gash is from an unidentified baby's fingernail at daycare (DNA analysis is pending), but the other dings are from Lyla treating the world like bumper cars.

The last two days, in fact, Lyla's teachers have had to fill out incident reports on her to explain her battle wounds. Yesterday it was, "Lyla was playing by the fish tank and tripped on a toy and hit her cheek on the shelf." Today it was, "Lyla was trying to run and lost her balance. She fell and hit her head on the toy shelf. She was also scratched by another child."

As we left the classroom, Lyla expressed a passionate interest in holding the incident reports. I denied her request, certain that she would discover a way to paper-cut her eyeballs.

This is the way parenting is, I guess. You watch your kids get older and hope that as they try new things, they'll go slow and remain standing, knowing full well that they probably won't. So you pick them up when they fall and take comfort in the thought that most kids do develop common sense by the time they're 25 years old.

Babble

I took Lyla to the doctor this afternoon. As we suspected, Lyla has another ear infection. Or is it the same ear infection as before? The medical community is stumped.

It'll be easier when Lyla is old enough to describe her own symptoms. Her vocabulary is improving: now when I ask her what a silly baby says, she goes "Babble-abble-abble." It's just a matter of time before she's able to say things like, "My ear feels like Claudius poured poison into it."

So now she's on an antibiotic that tastes gross. The pharmacist said to put it in whatever food Lyla likes. I'm wondering how to inject the glop into those Lil' Crunchies that Gerber makes. If you've never tried them, you should. They're like sophisticated Cheetos.

I did manage to squirt the medicine directly into Lyla's mouth this evening. Given the look of horror on her face as she swallowed it, however, I think we'll ultimately be better off with some pudding or a jar of frosting or something.

The best part of the afternoon was picking up the prescription. On Target's main aisle leading to the pharmacy, Lyla and I walked hand in hand. She babbled the whole time.

Pole

As Auntie Lori correctly pointed out, in yesterday's photo there is a binky even though Julie and I had previously decided to ban them except for bedtime. And now, after reviewing the photos from today, most of them show Lyla with two binkies. Did you know that with this whole parenting thing, Julie and I are making it up as we go?

So we're eventually going to de-binky this child. Someone suggested cutting off the tip of every binky in the house. The circumcised binkies will feel wonky to Lyla, and she'll kick her own habit. But it seems cruel to cut her off cold turkey while she's teething. Hey, I bet cold turkey would feel good on those gums.

But anyway, at night and during naps, Lyla still manages to lose the binky through the bars of the crib. When we respond to her cries, we often find her with her arms between the crib bars, straining futilely to reach to the floor. I think for her birthday on Friday I will buy her a small fishing pole.

Adult

Yesterday I was driving from Target to Chipotle and a guy nearly sideswiped me off the road. He changed lanes without looking, and the blaring of my horn did not compel him to notice or care that I was right where he intended to go.

I avoided an accident by slamming on my brakes. My Target bag hit the dash and emptied onto the floor. The young driver slid in just ahead of me; his back bumper could've high-fived my front one.

I nearly flipped my shit. My middle fingers were up before I could tell them to cool it, and I screamed obscenities as though the sound might penetrate my windshield and his. When his middle finger went up too, for a moment I wished upon him with all my heart a painful, horrifying death.

So here's my rudimentary understanding of the human brain. Teenage brains tend to process emotional stimuli in the amygdala, which makes them react impulsively. In adults, emotional stimuli get processed in the frontal cortex, a part of the brain that's more rational and slow to react.

Clearly my amygdala takes over in tense driving situations. I think that's true for a lot of America. In reality I don't wish the young man any ills at all, except for maybe a low sperm count. But those awful thoughts in the heat of the moment--I need to get that stuff under control. It could've happened with Lyla in the car; would I have reacted the same way? Or worse?

There was no further incident once we each put our fingers away. I didn't pass him or tail him or anything like that. My frontal cortex had shown up by then. Resolution: next time I'll laugh it off. Like an adult.

Fingertips

Lyla knows the sign for "more" and does it often. She'll toddle to the cabinet with the baby food in it, open the door, and press her fingertips together.

The way it works, I guess, is that when a baby first learns to ask for something maturely, you have to give it to her. We must reinforce the meaning of the "more" sign, right? If we ignore it or remind Lyla that she actually just ate ten minutes ago, then we'll teach her that the sign is ineffective and that she should scream and cry whenever she wants something. So Lyla got to eat a lot of snacks today.

Julie's mom is staying with us this weekend. She predicts that when Lyla is finally done with her schooling and has found the perfect career and has nailed the series of interviews with human resources, her potential supervisor, and the company vice president, they'll love her and immediately offer her a handsome salary. And Lyla will furrow her brow and do the sign for "more."

Giant

It's Lyla's birthday in one week. My parents, who apparently subscribe to the bigger-is-better school of thought when giving gifts, dropped off that monstrosity last night. I might fold laundry on it later.

One year ago today, Julie was officially overdue.


Here she is posing jauntily, beach ball stuffed up her shirt. That morning she went to the doctor and got her membrane stripped, like a paramecium during pledge week.

I'm really proud of that last sentence, so please read it again.

A year later, Lyla is a total mama's girl. I got home with her early this evening; we were playing, and everything was pleasant. Suddenly Daisy began barking at the voices in her head, and Tulip began barking at Daisy's barking. Lyla misinterpreted the barking to mean "Mama's home," so she squirmed out of my lap and teeter-waddled to the door.

She fell apart when she realized Mama was not there. She pushed that car in the above photo all around the living room while saying "Ma" in various shades of disappointment. I felt so bad for her that I almost let her open the giant package.

Doctors

This is a classic Dad outfit: boyish, unmatching, and hated by Mom.

Julie took Lyla to urgent care today to investigate our suspicions that Lyla has another ear infection. They got in the "Quick Check" line because it was routine and only involved, hence the name, a quick check.

So after ignoring the glares of the patients wearing masks who had been waiting longer, Julie and Lyla entered the exam room and encountered a medical student by the age of about 26 who fumbled his way through the ear examination. "I, uh, um, I can't, like, you know, like, see anything?" is approximately what he said to justify his six-figure student loans as Lyla whined and squirmed.

Then an older doctor entered, wiped the sweat off the handle of the ear instrument, and demonstrated to the flustered neophyte how to use it properly. The verdict? Call Dr. House: Lyla might have an ear infection. It's a mystery. We can now all but prevent HIV from becoming full-blown AIDS, but we rub our chins with consternation when asked about an infant's red ears.

Julie and Lyla left with no prescription and the dreaded instructions to wait and see. It sort of makes sense: Lyla's old ear prescription ended just a couple days ago, so it's still technically in her system. She doesn't have a fever. And she's teething walrus tusks. But still, "Wait and see" is a bunch of crap. Give us a prescription to fill just in case all the waiting and seeing turns into an ear-tugging, feverish child on Saturday night.

It's funny how parenting can sometimes make you feel totally incompetent, but other times it makes you feel smarter than doctors.

Mess

Lyla has been a hot mess the last couple days. With her cough, snotty nose, teething, and tendency to bang her head on things, we could make a pile by sending her door to door with a sign asking for spare change.

Enough brainstorming about ways to contribute to the delinquency of my baby daughter. Minor sicknesses during flu season are the way it goes for babies. During those occasional days when Lyla doesn't have a snotty nose or cough, it's almost more disconcerting because we don't know what's going to happen next. At least with a cold, we know it's probably not the flu.

But she's a gross little lady: the snot, the infant gag reflex, the hair matted down from sitting in the steaming-shower bathroom with her dada. The drooling. The pooping. Babies are not glamorous creatures.

Insubordination

The other day I was having an argument with Lyla. She was saying no while shaking her head, and I was saying yes while nodding mine. We haven't yet taught her to honor thy father and mother, which might be one reason she didn't immediately submit to my way of thinking.

The other reason might be that neither of us had any idea what we were arguing about. She just started saying no, and I started saying yes. Hopefully she wasn't thinking about something bad such as shoplifting Elmo dolls and saying no to indicate her disapproval of the act, and then having to reconcile that her dad was saying yes.

It turns out that babies sometimes say no and shake their heads for no reason. I realize this is difficult to believe considering everything else they do makes complete sense. No is an easy word to say, like mama, and head shaking is easier on the neck than nodding. So it's possible that Lyla was just babbling.

But it's more amusing to think that she was talking back, sassing off, copping a 'tude. Perhaps I witnessed a precursor to her teenage years. Or rather, her terrible twos.

Cough

Lyla has developed a scratchy, barky cough from her smoking habit. Her daycare teacher thinks it's croup, pronounced "croop," which is a disgusting name for a cough. It's almost an onomatopoeia since when Lyla coughs, she goes "Croup, croup, croup!"

She's also teething like a shark. The drool and snot coupled with how she lurch-walks around the house makes me wonder if she'd ever pass a field sobriety test.

Attention businesses: can you please make it easier for part time and hourly employees to stay home when they're sick? This afternoon I averted my facial orifices as Typhoid Mary bagged my groceries. I'm sure a germ or two slipped in through my nostril or eyeball, though, and then I drove directly to pick up Lyla with her drool and croup.

Lyla was cute, though. These two moms who totally have a crush on me (because I am boyishly handsome) were there picking up their babies. They marveled at Lyla's walking skills, which she had apparently been showing off seconds before I arrived. Then Lyla lurched over to me and crouped in my eyeball and nostril, so we left.

Let's hope she sleeps tonight better than last night.

Articulation

Lyla walked around the house all weekend and practiced her favorite words: mama, no, hi, baby, and, every once in awhile, certainly not her favorite word by any stretch of the imagination, and she probably only says it out of charity or familial obligation or because her mama tells her to, dada.

She's good at mimicking, though. I can say something like "Daddy is my favorite parent," and she'll respond with something like "Da day."

Lyla can also technically say ball, though it comes out as "ba," and always a whisper. It's like she doesn't want the ball to hear her talk about him.

If you pay attention to what your mouth does when you say certain words, you can see how it would be hard for a baby to say ball. Okay, put your lips together like you're going to say "ma," but push them together slightly before making a sound, so it comes out "ba." Now do the same thing but give it some air, and you get "pa."

No wonder babies say mama first. It's simple. All you do is make sound while opening and closing your mouth. Go ahead, try it at your computer; no one will think you're crazy, I promise. The process of saying mama is not nearly as fancy, by the way, as making sound while bouncing the tip of your tongue off the alveolar ridge of your mouth, which is the hardship you go through to say dada.

Which is why Lyla doesn't say dada as much as mama. I'm just saying.

Affirmation

Auntie Jodie took photos of Lyla telling herself what a cool chick she is.




It's Lyla's daily affirmation, like Stuart Smalley, who is now a senator. Perhaps it's an omen that Lyla will one day be on Saturday Night Live, or a senator, or at the very least, please God, a democrat.

Rediscovery

If you woke up tomorrow able to perceive the world around you in a fourth dimension, you'd go nuts. Suddenly you'd be fascinated with the ordinary objects in your life that you previously took for granted. You would exhaust yourself and everyone around you.

That's what Lyla is experiencing now that she's a walker. The wall! The dog's tail! Air! Everything is new again, for she's seeing it from a perspective she never knew existed.

In other news, we're trying to curb Lyla's binky use. Auntie Lori suggested a binkies-at-bedtime policy, which happens to also be how they do things at Lyla's school. We've had general success with it at home; the only problems have arisen when Lyla sees a binky and realizes she doesn't get it.


When Lyla was a tiny baby, Julie or I could have simply removed the binky from her sight and she would have immediately forgotten that it ever existed. That's how newborns' brains work: in those days, rediscovery happens constantly. You can leave the room and return 12 seconds later and the newborn would think, "Who's that giant?"

Rediscovery is cool. I can't wait till this kid learns to read.

Zoom

Lyla's birthday is two weeks from tomorrow, and the smart money says she'll be a functional walker before then.

Consider:

In mid-August, Lyla pulled herself to a standing position.

In mid-September, she could stand unassisted for three seconds.

A couple weeks ago, she could walk unassisted for two steps.

And as of today, she can suddenly walk halfway across rooms.


As soon as Lyla figures out how to get herself to a standing position without holding onto anything, she will deem crawling officially passé.

Will she be a toddler then? Isn't a toddler one who toddles? My goodness, time zooms.

Addict

Julie writes once a week or so on a blog called Beyond the Binky. On it, she channels Lyla's thoughts about various toys, ending each post by ranking the toy on a scale of one to five binkies.

The binky, or pacifier if you wish, is Lyla's gold standard for toy quality. Nothing is more fun or satisfying than a binky. If I placed a pile of binkies on one end of the room, sat with Julie on the other end, and positioned Lyla in the middle, we would get rejected faster than meatloaf at a vegetarian potluck. If Lyla knew what marriage was, she would want to marry a binky.

So anyway, we're thinking of taking away her binkies. With teething and getting sick, she's been binky-crazy lately, and I wonder if she's becoming addicted, like a meth head. She'll be a one-year-old in just over two weeks, so maybe we'll hide all the binkies as a backhanded birthday present. But will taking them away now give her a complex, make her a thumb sucker into adulthood?

Many babies lose interest in binkies by the time they're two years old. It seems to me that waiting that long is like flipping a coin. Heads, your baby is normal and stops the binky on her own. Tails, your baby becomes a lifelong binky addict and robs convenience stores in order to buy more binkies.

Now I need a binky.

Artistry

Almost exactly one year ago on the "My Wife Is Preggers" blog, I referenced a documentary called "My Kid Could Paint That." It's about a supposed child prodigy painter whose work has sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The movie tries to be unbiased, but it becomes obvious that the father is behind the art, and the mother is either clueless or pretending to be clueless. It's gross.

So one year later, Lyla came home from school with the very first artistic project of her life. Now, I'm not counting the many priceless works she has reproduced in her pants: Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and Jackson Pollock's entire collection, among others. Today her teachers taped some paper leaves to a tray, squirted in some finger paint, and took cover.

Proud dad that I am, I figure scanning them and putting them on the internet is the 21st century version of magnetizing them to the refrigerator.


My kid really did paint those. And they're not for sale.

Moon

Lyla's teacher reported that the full moon tonight in combination with daylight savings time made for a room of crazy babies. Lyla was a happy child all day, though, and ate an entire pancake, so clearly she was excited to be with her snot-nosed little friends instead of sick at home.

Julie and I didn't notice any behavior in Lyla to indicate a sensitivity to full moons. She didn't suddenly sprout hand hair or fangs, and she didn't hunt any animals, so she's probably not a werewolf. But the night is young.

With her ear infection antibiotics kicking in, we're hoping for a night without howling.

Hour

Every fall when it's time to set back the clocks, I always wait until Sunday evening to admit that anything has changed. I play little games with myself all day to maintain the illusion that daylight savings hasn't happened. That way, at 8:30 PM when I announce to myself that it's actually 7:30 PM, there is cause for great celebration.

But it's more complicated when you have a baby. Lyla's bedtime doesn't suddenly change; just like always, she fell apart at 7:00 this evening (6:00 to you). When Julie and I put her to bed, we imagined her sleeping her usual 12 hours and waking up at her usual time, an entire hour earlier than we're accustomed to tending to her many demands.

I suppose we'll gradually move Lyla's bedtime to the new 7:00, but what a pain. We're saving daylight, yes, but is it really worth messing with the schedules of babies across America?

Anyway, I'm almost ready to take my hour, but I need to get myself back in the mindset of it being an hour later than it actually is. Ugh, I wish I had more time. I want ice cream and tea, but there's no time. I should just get ready for bed. I hate Sunday nights.

And NOW.

It's not 8:30, it's only 7:30! Woo hoo!