How to Get Old in 6 Months

Otto turned 6 months yesterday.  It's pretty unbelievable that he is 6 months old already.  He's developing all sorts of new sounds and learning how to use his arms and hands more.  Of course, one of the new sounds he's learned is screaming and he's learned how to use his arms to flail.  It's okay.  I still love him.

It's also pretty amazing how much kids can change in 6 months (cliché alert!).   It's true, though.  He's got a personality now.  He has a voice.  He has very clear likes and dislikes.  He's got habits and quirks.  He's also over 20 pounds now.  He's twice the size he was 6 months ago (but then again, so am I).

The thing I find a lot of parents don't talk about is how much THEY change.  When Otto was born, I had freshly turned 30.  I made the transition pretty smoothly, I think.  I felt young.  I was in the best shape I had been in in years.  I was eating well and taking better care of myself than I ever had.  But 6 months can change everything.

Now, I'm old.  As the main character in Motherless Brooklyn puts it, I'm not fat, not muscular, just "bear like."  I am chronically tired and as a result I eat mostly sodium.  Sometimes I eat saturated fats with my sodium.  There's nothing better than deep fried sodium.  I lose my breath going up a flight of stairs at the library.  I also am so coffee dependant I'm almost to the point of waking myself at night for a coffee so I don't wake up with a headache in the morning.

This concept of rapid aging first came to me while we were in Hawaii.  This was the first time I didn't surf while I was there.  It was a little sad, because I love to surf, but sometimes things just don't work out.  I was already in a cycle of bad eating and pretty severe coffee dependance by that time.  I started boogie boarding while I was there and I used my boogie boarding to convince myself I'm not that old.  And that worked, for a while.  As long as I was boogie boarding, I was fine.  Then it donned on me.  My boogie boarding partner was my father-in-law.  Actually, he did more boogie boarding than I did.  The day I reached my epiphany we had happened to run into one of my uncles who was also boogie boarding with us.  That day, I was the only person boogie boarding on our beach under 50 (of about 6 or so people).  Well, that's not entirely true.  There was an 8 year old that I was trying very hard to keep up with.

My self observation of getting older continued after we got home.  I think I've found a pretty reliable measurement tool for evaluating if you're old or not.  It's based on what you are embarrassed to buy at the pharmacy.  When you're really young it's junk food, and if you're not that bright, maybe cigarettes.  When your young and in your prime, it's things like condoms and feminine hygiene products.  Then one day, you're hiding Propecia pills and Senekot under your arm as you pull your hat low and walk out the automatic doors.

My scenario is a little different than most parents, though.  My rapid aging process has much less to do with Otto, and much more to do with studying.  (Since my last post, by the way, I finished reading Rosen's.  Ever finished a book and realized you don't really remember how it started?).  In fact, Trisha pretty much does 95% of the parenting so I can get all my reading done (so if she asks, I was reviewing flash cards while I was typing this blog, okay?).

Trisha has been amazing through all of this.  She's been put through a lot while I've been studying.  She essentially has become the single mother of three problem children.  The cute one that doesn't sleep and has just learned how to have temper tantrums, the ugly and jealous one that insists on constant attention in the form of "fetch" (that's Ralph by the way), and the hulking, absent minded man-child that is currently completely unable to look after himself.  The third one can recite the diagnostic criteria for endocarditis verbatim, but can't remember to buy milk on the way home.

So if you read this blog and you know us, please remember my poor wife sometime.  I have a little over a month and a half until I'm done this exam completely.  At that time I can (hopefully) be a normal, adult parent/spouse.  In the mean time, my wife needs support.  Coffee date.  Phone call.  Text message.  Thanks.

Ralph.  Upside down.

Return of the Blog, Escape from Rosen's

You probably didn't notice, but I haven't written anything in a very long time.  I haven't been around.  I've been...lost.  Lost inside a very big book.  The book looks like this:



Rosen's Emergency Medicine.  203 chapters in this edition.  About 3000 pages.  I've read 180 chapters, and almost 3/4 of all of those chapters I have read after Christmas.  The best part...I don't remember any of it.

That's not entirely true.  I seem to remember completely useless, never-going-to-use-in-my-career sort of facts.  For instance, I can't seem to forget how African Sleeping Sickness presents.  Unfortunately, that information is taking up real estate where important information used to live (i.e. what to do if someone's heart stops beating).

For anyone who hasn't heard me complain about it, I've got an exam in May.  Most of it is based on this book.  I've made about 5000 flashcards so far.  Every so often I pick up a flash card from one of the many piles just to see if it sparks any sort of recognition at all.  I can usually identify the handwriting as mine...usually.

Trisha and I did actually manage to get away for a few weeks amidst all this studying.  We went to Maui...again.

In earlier posts I've commented on how I used to think I was a hipster.  In my pseudo-hipster phase, in keeping with delusional hipsterisms, I thought Hawaii was the lamest. So tacky (and not in a cool - thrift store kind of way).

Then I went there.  There's a reason that Hawaii is the prototypical North American cliche vacation spot.  It's perfect.  I'm not even going to go on about all the reasons why, it just is.  Go there.

Side note:
I think Hawaii falls into the same category as Volvos, being conservative, and architecture magazines.  Eventually, every white, middle class loser likes them.

It also FORCES you to break all your impractical hipster behaviours.  For instance, you would be insane to wear skinny jeans in Hawaii.  Overpriced retro sneakers don't work on the beach.  There are no college radio stations so unless you have satellite radio you have to listen to the oldies station and admit to yourself that popular music can also be good music. 

We can't stop going now.  This was our fourth trip.  We've been to Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island.  This time was Maui (again).

We were so excited to go.  We went with Trisha's parents (built in babysitters!), we had the perfect location booked, and we got great, cheap flights.  Everything was planned perfectly.  But Trisha could not relax.  For a month leading up to our trip, all she could think about was how terrible Otto was going to be on the plane.  It's something I never would have even thought of, but Trisha was so worried about it that she started to get me worried.  Trisha is very good at making the theoretical seem extremely inevitable.

"Wait...He's going to cry the whole time?!  That's over six hours!"
"Why doesn't he want to eat?  He loves to eat!"
"Can he really start teething at 10 000 feet?"

Well, as usual, all the worry was for nothing.  Otto slept 5/6 hours from Vancouver to Maui and 5/6.5 hours from Maui back to Calgary.  The only trouble he did cause was at a layover in Vancouver.

Otto is still young enough to fly free because he doesn't take a seat.  That being said, most airlines will shuffle seats around to make an extra seat between parents with a baby if there are empty seats on the plane.  If it's really obvious that there will be empty seats, they'll even let you bring a car seat on and buckle it in.  On our flight from Vancouver to Maui there were almost 30 empty seats.

As soon as there was an agent at the gate in Vancouver, Trisha pounced on her to ask about the car seat.  When she took Otto's ticket, however, she indicated that he had been flagged and that a security officer would be coming shortly.  She was serious.  Otto is four months old.

Sure enough, a border guard showed up.  And he asked the following question with a straight face:

"Does he have any belongings with him?"
"Did he see his baggage at the baggage identification terminal?"

Then he "patted down" Otto.  We actually had to wake Otto up, take him out of his car seat, and with four pats, the guard had effectively covered Otto's entire body.

He then expressed great distress as to how Otto was able to make it all the way to the gate.  Apparently this "flag" should have prevented him from getting through several check points before the gate.  This didn't seem like a oops-hope-that-doesn't-happen-again sort of thing.  It seemed more like an excuse-me-while-I-go-fire-someone sort of thing.

I don't know what Otto did to get such special treatment, but it looks like he got away with it.


There's a lot I could say about Hawaii, but maybe I'll save those for future posts.  After all, I don't know how many post I could make about reading Rosen's.

Road Trips

I love road trips, even when it is in less than ideal circumstances.

When I was a tree planter I once drove from Prince George to Winnipeg in one sitting.  My co-traveler was supposed to take over in Edmonton but she started puking around Jasper so I volunteered to captain the whole trip.  I started to get pretty tired by Saskatchewan but the retching really kept me going.  She fell asleep before Saskatoon so I had to rely on her bad music and smoking to get me through to the perimeter.  To this day Big Wreck and clove cigarettes give me flashbacks, but I still had a good time.  (Yes, I smoked a little when I was 18...give me a break).

A few years later I got to tour the North West US with some friends I was in a hardcore/metal band with.  It was July.  Due to a car breakdown of one of the members of another band, all five of us had to squeeze into a two door Honda Accord with no air conditioning.  I should mention, we were all pretty big people.  Davis, our drummer, is easily 6 foot 4.  When he was in the back seat he would have to put one foot out the driver window, so if you were driving and you went to shoulder check, you would get a face full of calf.  I remember being in Mile City one morning and hearing the forecast for the day being 110 degrees Fahrenheit.  We all grew up Metric, so we all looked at each other and said, "Is that hot?"

By 10:00am the sweat coming off of each of us had formed one continuous, disgusting film.  The windows were open, of course, but the air hitting our faces was hot.  We were living on peanut butter sandwiches and someone left the peanut butter in the back window.  That afternoon the peanut butter was the consistency of milk.  The best way I can illustrate what it felt like is this:

Imagine finishing the most intense track and field day of your high school career.  Now instead of a cool shower and a change of clothes at the end of the day, you are instead tied to four large friends who were also at track and field.  You are then placed directly between a giant hair drier aimed at your face and a giant magnifying glass that aims the sun at your back.

The weather stayed like that for almost two weeks.  It was one of the most fun trips I have ever been on.

Christmas entailed a couple of road trips with Otto.  We drove to each of our parents' houses (to Morris and Morden) and then over New Years we went to Minneapolis with Trisha's family.  Road trips with a baby and a dog are a whole different challenge.

First, you have to pack everything.  Swing. Chair. Clothes. Car Seat. Baby Toys. Play Pen. Presents. Kennel. Dog Bed. Dog Food. Dog Toys.  Somehow a giant station wagon that usually seems way too big starts to feel very, very small.  Interestingly, instead of cutting back on what you pack for your kid, you start to compromise what you pack for yourself.

"He needs that stuffed dog that sings Ba Ba Blacksheep.  I guess one pair of pants should last me about 6 days, right, hon?"
"These diapers take up this whole pocket on my suitcase.  What if I just didn't wear underwear a couple of days?"
"If I just crammed my clothes into a garbage bag instead of a suitcase I bet I could fit the formula next to the over packaged-going-to-break-tomorrow toys we got all our nieces and nephews."

The best is when you meticulously pack everything, Tetris style - every nook is utilized with precision.  After 45 minutes of arranging and planning you stand back to admire the densely packed mass of luggage.  As you do that, you trip over the vibrating chair your son needs if you ever want to put him down on his own for more than 15 seconds.  You forgot to pack it.

"Should I just leave it?" you think to yourself.  It's one of those questions you know the answer to but you hate the answer so much you still think about it for at least 20 seconds.  Then you unload and re-load the car 4 times trying to make it all fit again.  Each time it gets a little more disorganized until finally the whole car looks like it was packed by a tornado.  A grumpy tornado.

It's also super fun when you get to your destination, and despite all your efforts you realize you forgot something.  Especially something vital, like a stroller.  As you can imagine, getting around Minneapolis carrying a 12 pound car seat that contains a 17 pound child could be too much even for my amazing physique.  In our case, my in-laws came to Minneapolis the day after us and they were able to bring it for us.  Of course, the instant this solution presented itself my thought was, "How the * am I going to fit that in the car on the way home?!"
(* = heck, of course.  Come on, my mom reads this blog.)

Then after you're packed, you actually have to travel.  Traveling on an interstate with a baby is it's own challenge.  They start to cry as you pass a sign that says 'Next Rest Area 96 miles.'  Then it becomes a real battle of the psyche.  It goes something like this:

Just-Wants-to-Get-There self: He's just crying, that won't kill him.  It's just an excuse to go faster.
Over-Tired self: If we don't shut him up soon I'm going to drive this thing into the Water Park of America.
Paranoid-Parent self: What if it's an appendicitis?
Delusional self: Maybe I can block it out...we only have 3 more hours of driving.

All in all, though, the traveling was worth it.  We had a pretty great Christmas.  Otto got a bunch of toys he MIGHT be able to play with before next Christmas.  I got some nerdy coffee stuff.  Trisha got new boots.  Otto became really giggly this Christmas.  He's an easy smile now.  We got to spend a lot of time with family and, believe it or not, I even got some reading done.

Now I'm going to put up a bunch of really awesome Otto photos I wasn't allowed to put up before because they were presents for his grandmas.

Happy 2012, everyone.  By the way, if the world ends this year after I've done all this reading, I'm going to be steamed.

Roger Chartier put it best when he said, "It looks like they both filled their pants."

Otto and his girl friends from church.

Santa Klassen

Artur Neumann with Otto Artur Neumann (Klassen)

Otto and his Mama (he was smiling two seconds before this photo).

Christmas, Contraptions, and Concussions

The season of family gatherings is upon us again.  And I know, I already posted about family gatherings back at Thanksgiving, but we all know Christmas family gatherings are a whole other ball game.  Christmas is the big one.  And when you have a kid, it's an even bigger deal.  You want him to look cute, and to be good and you've got a stack of pictures of him to give to all of your aunts and uncles and cousins and so on...(remember that my extended family is so big we need to rent churches and community halls to get together).

Our Friesen family gathering was up first this year.  We met in a church in Winnipeg, which is really nice for us because we usually have to drive at least an hour and a half outside of Winnipeg to see our family.  Otto wasn't super happy but he did pretty good.  Our cousin, Mel Weins, had brought this slingy-wrappy baby holder thing that wraps around you and your child in such a way that they have no choice but to be still.  Once it's on, the parent looks like a python that swallowed a baby whole.  Otto loved it.

It's pretty amazing the simple yet ingenious things people have come up with for babies.  For instance, it's been cold and flu season around our house (Kindergarten Teacher + Emergency Doctor = Lots of cold and flu experience).  Babies have to breathe through their nose, but they aren't smart enough to use kleenex, so when they get stuffed up it's pretty frustrating.  So somebody invented something called an aspirator that is essentially a straw that you stick up their nose.  You then use it to suck all the mucous out.  There's got a built in filter so that your child's snot doesn't get in your own mouth.  Genius.  Also, a Bumbo.  I know it's old news already, but why hasn't this thing been around since the 1800's.  It's moulded foam that lets your baby sit up without falling over.  How hard was it to come up with that?

Then there was our Klassen gathering.  It was pretty nice, so I'm told.  I can't remember a lot of it.  Let me explain.

It was in a town called Sommerset.  The idea was to have a mini curling bonspiel.  I didn't want to play.  Lets say that sports and me are like oil and firecrackers.  But I did.  It's curling, after all, what could happen?  Well, I threw a rock and on getting up from throwing said rock I promptly slipped backwards and fell square on my head.  I then continued to curl, but seemed to forget what town I was in.  I went inside to take out my contacts, but kept trying to take out the left one.  I still have no idea where the right one is.  I found my wife and apparently asked her the same question three or four times.  My wife has experience with me and sports and immediately identified I had another concussion.  (Yeah...I said another concussion).  My wife tells me I was saying over and over again, "but I have to study."

The potential of not being able to study was a very real concern.  Concussions are not very conducive to learning.  I'm fortunate to have a very faithful and prayerful family who took very good care of me, including my wife who drove all the way home and let me rest in the passenger seat.  By the time we reached the perimeter I was able to recite all the reasons I did not need a CT scan.  I read a chapter the next day and remembered about as much as I would have expected to pre-concussion.  It looks like I will be ok (although I've got a decent goose egg and a sore back, but that's a small price to pay.)

For future sport consideration, though, I intend on wearing safety goggles when I play darts and a helmet when I go swimming.

As for Otto, he's doing OK.  Like I said, it's flu season and with all these new people holding and hugging and kissing him it was inevitable that he would catch something.  I'm comfortable with him getting sick and I understand that it is an important part of his development.  What I don't understand is how you can poop that much and still gain weight.  He's making more and more sounds every day and has now figured out how to rock himself in one of his chairs by kicking his legs.  He loves it.

So I guess this might be it until after Christmas (realistically).  I hope everyone has a really nice holiday.  Merry Christmas to you from Jeff, Trisha, Otto and of course, Ralph.  I promise all kinds of new Otto pictures after the holiday.

Otto and his new bud, Ben.

Noggins

December 3, 2011
Ottos acquired skills: Smiling, cooing, eating
Working on: Sleeping

Dad's achievements: 41 chapters read.  161 to go.


Studying for me has become a bit like Otto falling asleep.  At first, I will do everything in my power to avoid it.  I whine and fuss, I eat to comfort myself, I may even cry a little.  As hard as I try to avoid it, though, I know it's inevitable.  Eventually my will breaks, and I study.

And just like Otto's sleeping it's been a progressive learning process.  At first I could only read an hour or two at a time.  Then miraculously I read for four hours straight.  Then a few days later, five hours.  And pretty soon, it's not that unusual to read 8 or 10 hours at a time (That analogy doesn't quite work, because Otto can't sleep for 8 hours at a time yet).

Otto needs props to sleep.  He has his swing and his white noise.  For my studying, it's coffee and music.  I'm really happy I haven't lost the ability to listen to music while reading.  I'm discovering and re-discovering all kinds of great music and it's made me kind of happy about spending most of my day tethered to my computer.  Right now I've found that metal and hardcore punk provide the right amount of angst and motivation to get through page-turners like "Peripheral Vascular Disease" and "Fever."  As much as I hoped metal would put Otto right to sleep, though, that's not the case (nothing ever works quite as well as it does in sit-coms).

Christmas has seeped into our house, despite all the pre-occupation with studying and parenting.  Our tree is up.  Otto was awake for a little family decorating time.  We've got some new Christmas music circulating this year, which is nice because as much as I love Christmas music I have a pretty low tolerance for only one album over and over again for an entire month.

Unfortunately, Otto's first Nog's Eve came and went pretty uneventfully.  What's Nog's Eve, you ask? It's a holiday celebrating the "specialness" of Egg Nog.  In order to protect Egg Nog's "specialness" you should only drink it for one month a year (i.e. December).  Therefore, a proper Nog's Eve celebration involves getting together with friends on November 30th, counting down to midnight and enjoying your first glass of cool Nog for the year.

If you're really interested, read this: http://chrisramblingon.blogspot.com/2007/12/nogs-eve-brief-history.html.

We didn't celebrate this year.  Too busy.  I hope we're not so lazy with Otto's first Christmas.

Speaking of Otto, he's turned into a little ball of sunshine.  He smiles, and laughs, and coos.  He makes eye contact.  "Big deal!" you say?  You can do all those things, right?  Well, let me get sappy for a second.  There's something in a baby's smile that just can't be described.  If you could put it in a bottle you'd be a millionaire.  If you don't believe me, I dare you to watch this video and not feel that something inside.

Notorious O.A.K.

Wow.
It's been a really long time.  Sorry about that.  I've been...preoccupied.

Otto is 8 weeks old now!  Can you believe it?  I can't.  It FEELS like it's been much less time.  However, most people agree when they see Otto, it LOOKS like it's been much more time.

Otto is fat.  There, I said it.  Well, maybe not fat...just big.  Really, really big.

Trisha takes him to a mom's group on Tuesdays.  Some of the babies there are weeks older than Otto, but he's still the biggest one.

Today I was showing off pictures of him at work.  A medical student asked me if he was 6 months old.  In my mind I shrugged it off as the medical student not knowing anything about babies.  I scoffed, "No, he's only 8 weeks" (subtext: you know-nothing-med-student).
To which she replied, "Oh, really? because my 5 month old isn't nearly that size."

He wears it well, though, don't you think?  He's solid.  And if he weren't big it just wouldn't be the same.  Like Chris Farrley...no wait, that's not a good comparison.  Like Drew Carrey...no, he wasn't great big or small.  How about, Elvis...no, he was much better small.  Andre the Giant (Anybody want a peanut?)?  Maybe Santa?

I know...like Dolph Lundgren! Remember Rocky 4 when he was HUGE and AWESOME (albeit the bad guy, but still pretty cool) but then he made a bunch of lame movies like I Come in Peace (AKA Dark Angel) and he lost a bunch of weight and it just wasn't the same.  Otto's like that, but not Russian and not a bad guy and not a boxer and not really able to stand or say one liners...

Never mind, no comparisons.  He's big and he's beautiful and I love him to pieces.

He's also already too cool for me.  Trisha took him to Victoria last week-end with her mom and her sisters to celebrate her mom's birthday.  Then, I worked a lot this week and was busy with a bunch of other things.  I hadn't seen Otto much for a while.  Tonight, though, Trisha had to run errands.  It was supposed to be just the boys at home tonight.

I was actually kind of excited when Otto woke up from his nap.  We were going to hang out.  So I cuddled him.  Crying.  I bounced him.  Screaming.  I walked him around.  Hysteria.  I concluded it must be that he was hungry.  I set him down to make a bottle, but as I'm making the bottle I realize that he's not crying anymore.  Lying flat on the ground and staring at the ceiling is somehow more comforting than hanging out with dad.  Tear.  Sigh.  Gentle sob.

Away with Type A

*Disclaimer: For some reason this post is really hard on engineers, residents and people from Kingston. I’m still going to post it because I think it’s kind of funny, but to those included in those groups please realize a lot of it has to do with me having a bad week.*

It's been a while.

I've actually been away from Trisha, Otto and Ralph for five straight days. It was kind of tough. Otto was kind enough to learn how to smile about an hour and a half before I got on a plane. So for about eight hours of travel time (with lay overs) I got to picture all the smiles Trisha was getting without me. I would have been jealous if I didn't consider all the diapers she was getting without me.

The one thing I thought I might benefit from was four nights of uninterrupted sleep. I thought I would come home rested and ready to study and parent and doctor. I was wrong.

Let me explain. This "vacation" was in Kingston. Why does anyone go to Kingston, you ask? Great question.

I'm from Winnipeg. I get it, it's not that rad for a lot of reasons, especially to people who have never been here. But Kingston is a whole different kind of joke. Kingston, it would seem, is not really a city at all. It's a city sized frat house.

The entire population exists in Ugg boots and jogging pants by day. By night, it's a mix of jersey shore-esque douchery, hippy dippy stoner prep ware, or the foreign grad student look. Over lunch I heard a group of thirty-somethings discussing their favourite ultimate Frisbee tournaments. We walked passed several houses with enough boxes of empty beer bottles out front to build a fort. One such house had three young men who had obviously just woken up. They were sitting out front staring blankly and speechlessly into the two PM daylight. At least one of them appeared to have slept in the back of his father's Suburban, which sat open next to them half on the lawn. This SUV contained about four pounds of whey protein/creatine, a pillow and an economics text book.

The sidewalks are peppered with splatter marks and on at least three occasions these splatter marks still contained fresh vomit. It is easy to presume that most of those splatter other marks were also made by some sort of bodily fluid. At least all the old buildings are classy.

Everyone wears school jackets. I didn't think anyone wore school jackets. Not only do they wear them, they torture and dye them by faculty-specific colours in some sort of ritualized dorkishness. On a nerdiness scale it makes Comic Con look like the Super Bowl. At first I thought it was just the engineers. This seemed acceptable to me because in general that faculty has a well known, nation wide communal thought/personality disorder. But it goes beyond engineering and even includes...medicine. If you ask me, there is a severe vacuum for a counter culture movement. If you’re wanting to start a revolution, Queens University is in desperate need of someone with independent thought and who ISN'T willing to sacrifice personal safety or fashion sense in the name of school spirit.

I think a great tag line for Queens university might be, "Queens: Is this the real life?" or, "Queens: I don't want to break free."

The reason I was at Queens was for a national review course for the Royal College licensing exam i have coming up in May. If you think it's stressful spending time around a one month old, try spending 5 days crammed in a room with overconfident, type A personalities from across the country that are either:

A) discovering that they don't know everything or,

B) trying to prove they do know everything.

I can make fun because I'm in no way immune to this, but on the "stressed out" spectrum of emergency medical residents I can pretty confidently say I'm way below average.

In all, a lot of people were able to put their neuroticism aside and I got to meet some descent people and I also got to spend some quality time with my fellow Winnipeg residents. That said, I missed Otto and Trisha and even Ralph like crazy.

It's really nice to be home. Otto is HUGE! It's amazing what can happen in 5 days. If it weren't for FaceTime and being able to see him for a few seconds each day, I may not have recognized him. He's still smiling a lot, which is a lot of fun. Today is Halloween. We dressed up. Don't you just hate it when parents force their own nerdy agenda on their children?