Do Not Wait Too Long to Dress Up Your Newborns and Infants

 

Admitted, I'm a sucker for cute baby clothes.  It's not unheard of for me to buy clothes for my baby or friends' babies because they were just too cute to pass by.  Damn you, Garanimals! I can't be the only one. Walmart uses this fact against me (and my ilk) by placing the cutest baby items along the main aisle.  I call it the "parent trap."

Besides what I was "trapped" into buying, my wife and I also received baby clothes as gifts.  By the time my son Clark was born, there were plenty of outfits we couldn't wait to take pictures of him wearing.  We imagined the places we would take those pictures, and how wonderful they would be.

Well, the problem is once your baby is born the clock on fitting into NB/0 or Newborn size starts ticking.  The size of your baby at birth is the biggest factors, but those newborns sure do grow quickly.  Before you know it, those super cute outfits are getting rather snug on your "little" one. 

There are going to be many sleep deprived nights once you bring home your new bundle of joy.  You are not going to want to go out anywhere.  Plus, many parents consciously choose to not leave the house with their new babies for quite a while.  There may be the occasional visitors that inspire you to dress up junior before he or she spits up or poops their way out of the outfit.   Therefore, there may not be very many occasions for you to dress up your little bundle in all those cute clothes you bought (or received).  There will definitely be fewer than you expect.

Clark wore mostly his short sleeve white onesies (it's hot in Vegas) around the house with a few cuter onesies in rotation.  He weighed over 8 lbs at birth.  He started outgrowing size NB at three weeks and 0-3 mo at around 2 months. 

So don't wait for special occasions to dress up your newborn.  If you do, you may find yourself with a closet or drawers full of the cutest baby clothes that your infant never got to where and are now too small.  Maybe, you can give them to an expectant friend or someone less fortunate.



     - Clark's Dad

Are Dads Better Poker Players?

On the surface you’d think that fatherhood and poker don’t play well together, as late nights out drinking beer with friends is often at odds with being a good dad. Appearances can be deceiving, however, as many professional poker players have credited fatherhood with one of the key factors that turned them into much better overall poker players. Whether you play online poker or primarily in live games, it’s likely that many of the lessons below can apply to you as well.

Patience: Poker is one of the few gambling games where skill determines the winners and losers instead of luck, but it’s hard to practice skill in a vacuum. Otherwise excellent poker players can be losing players in the long run if they’re impatience and don’t wait for opportune spots, and fatherhood is one of the very best ways for an impatient person to finally learn the value of being patient and taking things as they come.

A Greater Good: It’s much easier to take unnecessary chances when you’re young and single and no one else depends on you, behavior that often spills over to the poker tables and usually with negative effect. Many poker pros have said that it was only when they became a father that they were able to truly take the money involved seriously and to begin treating poker like any other career. Like any skill, consistently winning at poker takes lots of research, study, and practice, and that dedication often comes easier when you know others are counting on you to succeed.

Maximizing Your Poker Time: The limitless time you had for poker before fatherhood suddenly dwindles down, with it being harder and harder to find hours and hours to spend playing in poker tournaments or cash games. On the bright side, some players find they’re sharper and more focused when they do get a pass to play poker, as they know they need to make every opportunity count now more than ever.

     - Andy's Dad

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Andy´s dad is a professional poker player that has a passion for writing in his free time.

Honey It's Time: Rushing to the Hospital!

Lucy: Ricky, this is it!
Ricky: This is it!  This is it!  This is it! 

Hilarity and delirium ensues!  Ricky, Fred and Ethel run around like headless chickens.  They all simultaneously try to call the doctor, hail the taxi cab, and retrieve Lucy's hospital bags.  They run out of the house leaving Lucy behind, before coming back to get her. Classic comedy gold! They then all proceed to rush Lucy to the hospital.

I've been told this was the first "television birth and delivery (1950s TV style)." Thus, television's first "hurry up we have to get to the hospital, the baby is coming" moment.  Perhaps we have Desi and Lucy to thank for this fallacy.

The third thing we learned in the my labor and delivery class was that we could let go of that preconceived idea.  There will probably be no need to "rush" to the hospital.  Under normal circumstances, you will have hours, not minutes to get mommy safely to the hospital.

(That went double or quadruple for me, since the hospital is only 5 blocks away - maybe a mile a so.  In fact, we could have used to the walk to help jump start cervix dilation, if that was a good idea.  And if you read my previous post "Contractions Starting! Don't Go for a Walk!" then you already know it's not.)

Signs That You Need to Change a Newborn's Diaper

As a new dad,  if your baby is breast-fed, you will probably be surprised that that your baby's soiled diapers don't stink. They smell more "funny" than bad, and the smell can be very faint. Sorry, formula dads, you don't get this benefit. Without the smell, how do you now when to change the diaper?

Diapers are not transparent and don't have indicators like changing colors (which would be cool). Before you set your baby on the changing table or other baby furniture, it can be difficult for new dads to know when their newborn has wet or soiled their diaper.

Here are a few signs to look for

1. There's what I refer to as the baby cod piece.  If a baby wets his diaper, the modern super absorbent diaper soaks up the liquid and swells up.  The baby then appears to have a cod piece on.


2. A funny smell, which you will eventually recognize as the smell of (breast fed) baby poop, is a strong indicator of a soiled diaper.


3. The sign requiring the most immediate attention is any poop trying to make an escape from the diaper.  The most likely escape routes are the top back of the diaper and around the legs.


4. Crying, accompanied by one or more of the above.


5. Sounds of flatulence, squirting, or wet bubbling coming from inside the diaper

If you think your baby has wet or soiled their diaper, don't change it right away. You probably want to wait at least 5 minutes.  Baby may be mid pee or poop. Changing the diaper at the moment may result in you getting peed or pooped on in the process.  You may have to change the diaper again because someone wasn't finished before you put on a new diaper.

     - Clark's Dad

The Baby Photography Scam

A photographer's job is to take pictures.  Am I right? You pay them to perform a service, the service of taking pictures. Why do the photographers retain the rights to images of me or my child?  They then ransom additional copies of those images to you.  Images that you have already paid him or her to take.  Some may sell you the rights [to print] (for an additional charge) to those picture, many will not.  Wal-mart and many other photo labs require a letter granting you authorization to reprint YOUR photos taken by professional photographers.

Everyone wants pictures of the biggest events of their life, which usually includes their wedding and their children growing up.  My wife and I had a photographer at our wedding.  The photographer was part of our wedding package.  I didn't learn the  photography business model until after the wedding.  You can pick out a few pictures as part of your photo package. If you want additional copies of those pictures or prints of any of the other pictures taken, you must order them from the photographer. Most wedding photographers will refuse to sell you the negatives until at least a year after the wedding.  Baby photographers have a similar model, but most will sell you the negatives or digitals when you purchase their premium-est of packages.  For this reason, my wife and I have mainly avoided baby pictures taken by professional photographers.

Admittedly, this type of arrangement may have made since before digital photography and before you could have film developed at the grocery store.  Unless you had your own dark room to develop film, the photographer was the obvious and often only choice to obtain copies of your pictures.  Holding on to the negatives/originals just facilitated things.  Film costs money, so does photo paper and the chemicals used to develop film and make prints.  However, with digital, there is no film. The cost of storage for each pictures if marginally zero.  Anyone can take their pictures to FotoMat (just kidding, there hasn't been a FotoMat booth in probably two decades) or have them printed from online.  This is even if one wants actual prints instead of just the digitals, which can be posted and shared on Facebook or other social media sites or placed in digital picture frames.

I have a programming background.  If you're hired for a contract job or have a long term employer, whatever you produce while on that job, including the intellectual property (IP) rights, belongs to the company that paid you. You were paid to perform a service (creating a program or code). You don't own it, the employer does.  If you use a Realtor to find a house, she doesn't get to maintain possession of the house and charge you rent to live there.  She was paid for the service of finding you a house only.

Product Review: Ear Peace

Recently, the Dads had the opportunity to try out an interesting new product (new to us) called Ear Peace. 

I hate to admit it, but I'm getting old, not "grown and sexy," mind you, just old. If you don't know what "grown and sexy" means, ask your Black friends. However, If you're reading this, I probably am your Black friend*. So try urban dictionary.  The signals abound regarding my descent into old age. Two outstanding examples that come to mind are the last time I attended a live concert (Skull Candy Pool Stage @ The Hard Rock Hotel) and the last time I went to a dance Club (Rain @ the Palms Casino).  Both events brought the same thought to mind: "Boy, the music is really loud.  You think they could turn it down a bit?  Maybe we should leave early!"  Classic sign of "oldmanery."  

Back to Ear Peace, cute name, right?  Sound like something you put in your ear, so you can ignore your family and anything else that annoys you when you get home from work. The Ear Peace is technically a set of ear plugs, but to be be cliche, "not your father's ear plugs."  You do place them in your ears, but that's where the similarities stop.

Traditional ear plugs block sound, they're ostentatious, and far from aesthetically pleasing.  The Ear Peace doesn't block sound, it dampens it, but not in the same way as traditional plugs.  The sound you hear isn't muffled, it's transformed.  What you hear is more vivid, cutting out "noise" and distracting background sounds, focusing on what you're trying to hear.  I'm not an ear science major, so I don't know why or how they work, but they do make what you're listening to sound better.  They don't block annoying sounds (crying babies, noisy neighbors, etc.) but makes them sound far less annoying. 

The Ear Peace is smaller than traditional ear plugs. They are easily inserted and removed from the ears. Ear Peace comes in three different shades (vanilla, caramel, and chocolate) to match your complexion, instead of the usual white and construction orange. They blend in and can probably go unnoticed to the unobservant, unlike most ear plugs.  Ear Peace also comes with a sleek carrying case, which is way better than a paper towel, which most people use to carry their ear plugs.