Poppa Large

BEEN A LONG TIME

I shouldn't have left you, without a dope post to step to...

I probably said this before but the truth of the matter is that I started Poppa Large because I had four things I wanted to get off my chest...and once I did that, I ran out of things to write about.

It's not that fatherhood doens't fill me with volumes of things to comment on but honestly, at the end of the day, it's hard to generate the energy to sit and blog about it. I have immense awe and respect for parents who manage this.

That said, I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet (though honestly, I'd love to have some more Big Daddies join in the fun and co-blog this with me. Seriously, a think a group Daddy blog would be hot. (MetroDad - think about it. Holler at your West Coast boy).

Anyways, here's a year's end update (more or less).

-L is almost 11 months old. She is, by her parents' (and close relatives') estimation crazy f---ing cute.

-She, however, strangely got hit with a bout of chicken pox. This, for a 10 month old, is not impossible but is certainly rather unusual, all the more so because we have no fucking clue where she got it from. She only plays with one other baby (who she cheerfully infected, much to our complete horror) and she hadn't come into contact with anyone that we knew who was carrying the virus. Obviously, she must have picked it up from some place...we think it might have been the airplane when we went down to LA for Thanksgiving but who knows?

-When I took her to the doctor to get her diagonosed initially, he kept doing this:
[Looks at pox blisters] "Son of a gun!"
[Looks at more blisters] "Son of a gun!"
[Looks at even more blisters] "Son of a gun!"
It was actually kind of funny except I was mostly mortified that L had the chicken pox to be that amused.

-L dealt with it like a champ and never scratched much but there were about two or three bad evenings where her discomfort (and we weren't sure if it was itchy skin or a headache or something else) was really bad. A bottle of calamine lotion and a few oatmeal baths later, she was all good.

-Meanwhile, fatherhood is still tough and I have to admit something to myself...something that I'll likely have to expand on later in a longer post: my daughter...my wonderful, beautiful daughter...kind of bores me. And by this, I don't mean she's a boring person: she's actually the most fascinating person I've ever met (cue: Lost in Translation script) but I haven't figured out how to be enraptured by her for a complete afternoon. When I'm at home watching her, I inevitably want the distraction of the computer or the television. I usually just try to take her outside which I figure is good for her and it gives me something to do rather than read Goodnight Moon for the gazillionth time (much as I do like the book. Sam and I can now recite it from memory as I'm sure, 99.9% of parents can).

-Also...she's completely exhausting now that she's learned how to crawl and good lord, is she crazy mobile. We're pretty sure walking is due in the next two months or so and then it's really going to be game over. I'll have to spend some quality time finding activities where she can expend all that energy she has stored up: My Gym, here we come! (And swim lessons. I'm looking forward to having L become a "Baby Beluga.")

-Meanwhile, our friends are pumping out babies everywhere. One of my closest friends gave birth about three months back to a baby boy and one of Sam's old colleagues had a baby girl around the same time. We have other friends who currently live overseas who are about three months pregnant and my old school mate is six months preggers. What's funny is that with one exception, ALL of these people are having part-Asian babies but so far, L is the only one who is "full" Asian. I don't know if that makes her 1) anachronistic or 2) iconoclastic.

-One last thing, just to put this out there and I'll come back and (maybe) expand on it later: I never really took seriously when people said that 1) marriage and 2) having babies = end of sex but now I really, really, really, really regret not having understood how that shit is very real and that I never should have taken for granted easy access to sex prior to all these things. It's been about a month now and when I sat down and did the math, I think Sam and I have averaged sex once every six weeks for 2005. If I actually drank beer, I'd be crying in it right now.

-See you in 2006. Happy holidays everyone.

Posted by P.L. at 12:19 AM