I am DONE. 搞定收工

Parenting is not like having dinner. There is no "I am done". At least not for another 18 (or 80) years.


    The umbilical cord stub is the least cute part of a new born.  For people who have cat, its like a small piece of dried cat poop occasionally laying outside of the litter box. Its harmless, but disgusting.

Here is the umbilical cord stub.

    To celebrate the falling of Emre's umbilical cord stub properly we gave him the first bath of his life. So we did the whole shebang; warm up the room, check the water temperature with my wrist (not hand), lay out the hooded towel, wash clothes, new outfit for the night and clean diaper. Bathing a baby is similar to playing four hands piano; it requires two people, four hands and perfect coordination. You take off the cloth, I peal off the diaper; you hold the baby from the nursery to the bathroom, I hold the doors open; you keep the baby still in the tub, I wash the baby from head to toe. Music to the ear. The good news is Emre loves bathing time. We know because he was not crying, so naturally we interpret as he LOVES it!!

So calm, so peaceful.

    After the bath Nihal, the Turk dad, announced "I am done" and marched out the nursery, leaving me, the one with boobs, with the baby to finish the bed time ritual. So I fed Emre for another 20 minutes, I held, rocked, shushed, patted and squatted for seemly eternality for him to go to the dreamland. The whole time the phrase "I am done" was echoing in my mind. ~~~ I am done, I am DONE, I AM DONE ~~~ (with increasing volume, in case you didn't notice the change of font) What did he mean by that? It's not having dinner, and you are not done. I am not done. When I finish a feeding or put the baby to sleep, I would ask him to take the baby for a while so I can have some "Me time" to use the bathroom or take a shower once in a couple days. I don't say I am done and barge out the room.

    Maybe I am too sensitive to the word choice. Having a shorter fuse than usual is probably a result of the combination of the following: lacks of sleep, the south direction of my body hurts, my breast hurts, I am constipated and I smells like sour milk. Why does baby smell so sweet, I sour? I wonder.

   So my advice to all the new dads in the world: never say I am done. Because you are not. You are never done. At least not for a very long time.

   My second advice is not to say "I am helping you". You are not helping her. It is your job, your duty, your destiny. Did I just expose how short my fuse is?

Hey, daddy is HELPing!

    Well, to be real honest, daddy does a lot of stuff not directly involves baby, including, but not limited to, doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, watching TONES of NBA and dealing with the endless insurance calls. So I am pretty happy.