In which the fun begins.

OK, so the baby is six weeks old and I haven't posted at all during that time, but it's not for lack of material, obviously. Just lack of time. And privacy. And time.

It seems that I should make some weighty post about the birth of our son, but I find myself coming up short. For one thing, I find that there is this tendency to behave as if one is the only person on earth to have ever reproduced -- that one's own childbirth experience is so unique and so singular that it must be related to anyone who will listen for their own edification and awe.

When in fact there is a childbirth story for every single human being on earth, neither more nor less unique than mine. So... we had a baby. I was crying myself when he came out. A really large baby -- at 9 lbs. 9.5 ozs, my wife had a person who weighed almost 9% of her pre-pregnancy weight come out of her. We stayed in the hospital for a few days because she had a c-section. What a sad commentary on the state of American society that we were sort of glad for the c-section because it meant an extra two weeks of paid maternity leave.

The grandparents and other well-wishers paraded through. I became a champion baby-quieter. The diaper thing is not really such a big deal -- the thought of regularly working with someone else's feces was one of my qualms about daddyhood, but -- at least for a breastfed baby -- it's nothing, really. Now when he's two and eating solid foods, it might be a different story.

There is an ocean of conflicting advice on baby care. Keep him on a schedule. Don't keep him on a schedule. Swaddle and comfort him. Let him cry it out. We're still feeling our way through on that.

The sleep deprivation is an issue. He has been a largely nocturnal creature, preferring to sleep all day and stay awake (noisely) all night. That slowly seems to be changing, but Cynthia, especially, is exhausted. I went back to work after two weeks and so ever since then she has been handling the midnight-to-six duties during the week (I still jump in on the weekends). We have different attitudes towards his constant crying; if he is fed and changed, I regard his crying like the sound of the ocean, something that it's useless to rail against, but it has an actual physical effect on Cynthia and she's unable to bear it for very long. But slowly, slowly, we're figuring out the difference between crying that should be attended to and crying that should be ignored.

"Colic," I've decided, is a term for a complex constellation of symptoms centered around the absolute physical and mental destruction of a baby's parents. The baby himself seems none the worse for wear after straining and screaming and crying all night. We, however, are wrecks.

I have not engaged in any meaningful exercise since the day he was born. The morning before we went to the hospital I took a nice long run, knowing it might be my last one for awhile. The combination of baby and cold weather (because, let's be honest, my morning run has been exceptionally sporadic during the below-freezing months for the past three winters) has shut down that enterprise almost entirely. Now, my workout consists of hoisting an increasingly heavy baby in my arms many times a day.

Cynthia's mother cam for two weeks after New Year's Day. Wei-Po (the Chinese term for one's maternal grandmother) adores her grandson; we started referring to him as xiao wang-zi, the little prince, based on his grandmother's worship of him. We were very glad for her help. And the delicious Chinese food she cooked every night. So in addition to not exercising, I was consuming massive amounts of home-made noro mein and other great dishes for two weeks. Wei-Po and I would meet in the kitchen and compare notes on cooking. I showed her how to make guacamole (which she could not pronounce). She showed me how to make a stir-fry with pork, bamboo shoots, and pickles (!). The name of which I cannot pronounce. Her mother's great regret was that her breastfeeding daughter did not want to eat too much spicy food, for the baby's sake. Wei-Po is from Sichuan where the food comes in two temperatures -- so spicy it burns your lips (la), and so spicy your face goes numb (ma la).

(I think I am Cynthia's parents' favorite Chinese daughter-in-law, despite being neither Chinese nor a daughter-in-law, because I cook, work 9-to-5, and gave them a grandson. Their actual Chinese daughter-in-law is brilliant, charming, and very successful, with a better education than me, twice my income (at least) and a beautiful eight-year-old daughter. But she works a lot of hours and doesn't like cooking, cleaning, dogs, or spicy food. Who knew that my relative lack of ambition or material success could actually ingratiate me with my in-laws?)

When Wei-Po went home I felt like I should pat her down at at the airport, and search her luggage, to make sure she hadn't smuggled Axl out of the house to take home with her.

My parents are also doting... at a distance. We took Axl to their house on Christmas Eve so he could be passed from relative to relative. My mother could not leave her dogs to spend two weeks with any of her children under any circumstances. And while she would be glad to babysit Axl for a day or two, there would be no request to leave him for a week, like Cynthia's mom wanted. (What Cynthia's dad wanted is, I think, utterly irrelevant to her calculations). My mother is trying to find someone with a pony so Axl can learn to ride. I suggested that he learn to walk first. Or at least hold his own head upright.

Will he be gay? Or a personal trainer? Or both? This week his favorite activity -- besides eating -- is lying on his back in his "baby gym" and looking at himself in the mirror.

That's enough baby stuff for now.

In which the excitement builds.

Depending on which medical professional one believes, Cynthia was due either today or two days ago.  Either way, the baby is a bit tardy.  Clearly this comes from his WASP heritage, not his Asian half.  The doctor has determined that if Axl doesn't join us by tomorrow evening, he'll induce labor and the baby will be born on Saturday.  It's good to have a known date, frankly.  Not only for trivial reasons -- notifying anxious relatives, planning work outages, etc. -- but for broader psychological reasons. One way or another, in 48 hours I will be holding my son.  I find that easier to deal with than the uncertainty.

And then... and then... ???  So it's not like I'm completely out of the uncertainty business.

Cynthia, for her part, seems to swing from one mood to another.  Sometimes she says she is filled with "dread" and that she's never really contemplated anything this permanent in her life before.  I point out that I am permanent, too, and she dismisses that airily -- "you're easy."  But then a moment later she says that having an only child somehow seems unnatural, and that we will be having a second one in fairly short order.  I tell her, one at a time.  Let's see how we do with the starter kid.

Tonight we picked up some tilapia and broccoli on the way home from work and I made a a dinner designed to eliminate a lot of odds and ends laying about the kitchen:  broiled tilapia with a lemon-dill marinade (using up a lemon and some dill leftover from the Turkish lamb I made Monday), and rice with garlic, shallots, and chicken stock (leftover from the Hainan jifan from a few weeks ago), and steamed broccoli.  Based on what I hear from my friends with kids, every part of this evening will disappear after Saturday -- coming home when I was finished working, instead of at a fixed time; relaxing with a book and some music for awhile; then spending an hour in the kitchen to make a meal involving ad hoc combinations of food; and eating at 8ish.

That's too bad, because it is an excellent way to spend a Thursday night.  It's the reason why there's dust on our TV remote and -- at the risk of TMI -- the reason why Cynthia and I have a very active and satisfying emotional AND physical relationship (even though actual intercourse became physically... improbable as of about a week ago).  How do we avoid letting our relationship with the child define our relationship with one another?  We have carved out a beautiful space for the two of us, and it was so satisfying and loving that we felt we wanted to share it with a third person, and so we made him... and while I know that he will help reshape it to accommodate a trio, I can't help but feel a little mourning for the loss of this place where we are right now.

Maybe one day, 30 years from now, when Axl is about to have his own child, I'll find the remains of this blog somewhere and share this with him, and I will have something to add to this -- some coda about the exchange of our cozy space for someplace a little brighter, a little louder, a little more frazzled.

In which I enjoy the calm before the storm.

Cynthia's due date is in one week. These things are, of course, approximations. We have only a general idea of when she actually conceived, and even if we knew precisely, the timing can still be off. Our doctor is in Australia until Sunday, so we are hoping the child delays his appearance until after that time.

For the past few weeks Cynthia and I have been acutely aware of the finality of many things. Spur-of-the-moment outings. Leisurely lounging in bed on a Saturday morning. Trips to hipster bars and 9 p.m. reservations at restaurants that would not even consider having a "kids' menu." Cynthia's advanced state of ripening makes some of those activities difficult even now, of course, but we are gamely out there trying out best to enjoy the end of our twosomehood. At the same time there is not much left out there to be experienced. Coming to parenthood after age 35, we have left few stones unturned. For the most part, everything we wanted to do, we've done (especially in Cynthia's case), or else it's too late to go back and do it (more in my case). What did I want to do before having a family? Spend the 1990s traveling the globe. Not marry so young. Go to a better undergraduate school. Since I can't do those things anyhow, none of them are obstacles to raising a family.

And it is the last few sentences of that paragraph which remind me of my chief anxiety about fatherhood. The boy has not arrived yet and already I worry about falling into clichéd parenthood traps. Chief among them, the desire to relive my life through him, sans mistakes. I want him to do the things I didn't do. I want him to get a better education, to travel overseas, learn another language, play an instrument, delay marriage, fulfill his potential in ways that I never did. I keep reminding myself: he is his own person. He is not me. He is not a do-over. Sometimes I have this horrible image of myself endlessly pontificating to the lad on my past and his future, and imagine his eyes glazing over...

Cynthia's anxieties are much more immediate, which makes sense, since the baby is a physical reality to her in ways that he can't be to me. Yet. As the third trimester winds down she has had a bout or two of gestational psychosis to go with her very mild gestational diabetes. A near-breakdown over the lack of all-cotton, dye-free hooded bathtowels, for example. (Apparently the child can never get into the Ivy League if his hooded bath towels have stripes on them). Another near collapse over having too many baby clothes. I make Hainan jifan and lamb and eggplant with farfalle pasta, and it soothes her savage breast. (I think that Hainan jifan is also a treatment for post-partum depression. I hope it's not needed, but I will stock up on ginger and shallots just in case.)

People ask us, "are you ready?" Of course not. But we are no less ready than any other first-time parent. And it just may be that having this experience after the age of 35 makes us more prepared. OK, we won't do as well with the anticipated sleep deprivation as a couple of 20-somethings, but at the same time, I think we will be a little more laid-back about the problems and a little more appreciative about the good things.

Are we ready? The baby's room is painted. His crib is assembled. There is a changing pad on top of a dresser. A box of newborn diapers next to it. Glass bottles. A Pack-N-Play. A car seat. Three different strollers. We've got the whole baby infrastructure in place, at least. As for the rest... ready as we'll ever be, I guess.

We've put aside our childish things.