Paternity Leave

I have arguably the best job in the universe - I get paid to think about unconventional ways to spend huge amounts of grant money, working on a set of problems that I'd have a good time thinking about even if I wasn't paid. To boot, I got 6 weeks of paternity leave when I signed my postdoctoral contract. Not bad at all. I used the first two weeks of leave immediately after Zane's birth, and then went back to work full-time, although I frequently worked light-days when I was needed at home. As had been the plan since we did the math shortly after Zane was born, I took my last two weeks of leave in early July, and got some bonding time with Señor Zane.

Despite putting a deposit down for Zane's day care in July 2006 (!), there was still a one month gap between the end of Dianna's maternity leave and the beginning of Zane's day care on August 1, 2007... and we were on the preferred list. Such is life in the bay area - if you expect to have any hope for child here, you should put down a deposit a few months before you decide to make sweet love. Hell, you might as well put down deposits every few months even if you aren't thinking about having a kid.



After 4 hours alone with Zane it became clear to me that this was going to require a set of coping skills that I simply did not possess. I had suspected for a while that Dianna was a lot tougher than I was (keep in mind that this woman literally laughed through her caesarian), and now I'm sure of it. I got handed a Zane that had been relatively conditioned and softened - Dianna had to deal with the turbo-crazy blank-slate version of Zane. I really can't even fathom what she had to go through in those early months. She's a rockstar.

Things were pretty bad at first. It's amazing how little you have to show for spending all day at home. I tried to work on the computer a little, but that was a joke. Besides focusing on Zane, I was able to do the dishes, and cobble together some bizarre concoctions for dinner, but that's about the limit of what I could accomplish. As my mom put it, "People without kids wonder why you aren't writing the great American novel with all this spare time. The answer is pretty simple: it's because you're fucking fried by this beautiful kid who consumes every ounce of your attention."

True dat.

Anyhow, my initial inexperience with handling the full force of the Zane left all of us lacking. I managed to totally screw up any rhythm that Dianna had painstakingly developed with him - particularly his naps were short and far apart. Although it seems counter-intuitive, daytime naps are pretty important for nighttime sleeping in a 5-month old. An overtired Zane wakes up a lot more at night, and when Zane wakes up, San Mateo wakes up. The kid doesn't bullshit when it comes to crying. His nocturnal consciousness produced an authentic gold-star argument between Dianna and I. I can think of few times in my life where I've felt like more of a putz than when Dianna, up for the 10th time in one night, gave up on trying to sleep and left for work at 4:30 am. Retrospectively it was a productive fight, because I got Zane napping and eating pretty well, and even figured out a few new tricks. For example, if you're trying to clean off the neck-fumunda that forms from milk dribbles, putting the kid on their belly induces them to lift their head up to see what's going on, and you can wipe out all their neck creases when they're busy looking around. Try it, it works.

He's actually a pretty simple kid to hang out with. At first I was trying to go out to do things - take hikes, go for long walks - but for Zane those are a bit overkill. He's perfectly happy playing in the hammock, or watching me throw the ball for Vegas, or trying to chew on his feet. He really likes physical contact, and the sling is a great way to give him lots of it. After two weeks I can now get Zane to calm down and take a nap, I know when he's tired, I know when he's hungry, I can distinguish between his cries, I know when he wants to stand and when he wants to have tummy time, and perhaps most importantly, I can get Zane to laugh from his soul. Now his face genuinely lights up when he hasn't seen me for a while. He's an incredible kid. It was an amazing two weeks.