The life and times of an irrational father. One man, multiple personalities.
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He hasn’t noticed yet

August 3rd, 2009 | Posted by Joe in adventures in babydom | breast milk | breastfeeding | Tyler - (6 Comments)


When Sarah left Tyler in sole care of yours truly, she was (rightfully) concerned about a few things. Aside from the obvious and tactfully worded “don’t you dare hurt my baby, you maniac,” one of Sarah’s issues was what to do on the topic of breast milk. Tyler’s been slowly weaning himself off the boob. He still wants HAS TO HAVE his nursies – as they are lovingly referred to in the Gearhart household – before bed, and in the mornings. He also gets them as a late night, please-go-back-to-sleep snack on those nights where waking up at two in the morning seems like the right thing to do, in his mind, of course.

So, what to do when Sarah’s out of town for nine days, two of them without Tyler? I gave her the “don’t worry, I’ve got this” speech, which did little to appease her worries or put her under the belief that I did, indeed, have this. I eventually compromised by telling her that I’d put some breast milk in a sippy cup, if Tyler absolutely had to have his nursies. I didn’t really see it as a concern, because he only wants nursies when Sarah’s around. Wait, let me say that another way. We never taught Tyler the sign for nursies, so he doesn’t exactly know how to tell us he wants them. As it stands now, he will try to pull Sarah’s shirt down and say “Dat”, to which Sarah will say, “Oh, do you want your nursies, Tyler? I couldn’t tell if that’s what you were asking for.” With Sarah being out of town for two days, he doesn’t really have an effective way of conveying the need for nursies to me. As long as he isn’t pulling down my shirt and trying to get to my nipples, he’ll be aces in my book.

This whole business of Tyler weaning himself off of the boob – with this unavoidable extra little push – got me to thinking about how much Tyler has really grown over the last thirteen months. And it hit me like a ton of bricks.

*a ton of bricks hits Joe*

Tyler isn’t a baby anymore. Completely unbeknownst to me, Tyler went and turned into a toddler. I am not happy with this. He’s my baby boy. He’s a baby that doesn’t need nursies anymore. He’s a baby that walks around, and probably doesn’t even remember how to crawl. He’s a baby that stacks toys and tries to figure things out. He’s a baby that tells us when he’s thirsty or hungry. He’s a baby that – sometimes – eats with a fork and spoon.

As much as I hate to accept it, and I really do hate it, Tyler’s baby chapter is over. I became so wrapped up in his story, that I failed to see the page that marked the beginning of a new chapter. My perfect baby boy is a toddler.


Anyway, the title of this post is “He hasn’t noticed yet” and the point I originally intended to make was that Tyler hasn’t had his nursies in over 48 hours. I guess I could have made a couple creative edits to this post and just titled it “The next chapter”, but I like the way it reads as it is now.

Let’s do a shot!

October 1st, 2008 | Posted by Joe in breast milk | friends | gross - (8 Comments)
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A Breastshield
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Something happened a few weeks ago, and I promised myself that I would blog about it.

Tyler is a breastfed baby, 100%. How a breastfed baby can weigh 19 pounds three days before he’s 3 months old is beyond me. If Mike and Heather want some of Tyler’s baby fat for their 10 and a half month old Maddie, I’ll send it via first class mail. Also beyond my comprehension is how Sarah can still have excess milk while breastfeeding a 19 pound baby. Don’t get me wrong, Sarah has always been *ahem* blessed in the bosom. Ever since her milk came in, her hoot hoots have become ginormous. Still, I’ve no idea how she can feed the chunky monkey and still need to say, “I need to pump.”

To do the deed, she uses a Medela Pump in Style Advanced breastpump. It’s a pretty cool pump. It does it’s job, and Sarah seems pleased with it. Two thumbs up as far as I’m concerned. It basically consists of a pump, a carrying bag, a tube, and a breastshield. Check out the picture to see what a breastshield is, as it’s the subject of this post. I will also be referring to it simply as “shield” for the rest of this post. If you have ANY imagination whatsoever, you can easily see where it goes.

Well… a while back, Sarah and I, along with Tyler, went to spend a long weekend with Mel and Adam, and their son, Ben, at their lake cottage. You can read about that here. I didn’t mention this particular story then, because I really believed it deserved its own post.

On one particular morning while we were there, Sarah needed to pump. When she was done, she put the shield next to the kitchen sink. Me, Sarah, and Melanie were all sitting at the dining room table. I couldn’t tell you with absolute certainty what we were doing though. I’m sure we were either playing Yahtzee or eating food. Adam is walking around munching on chicken wings (at 9am) or something.

Adam is one of the funniest guys I know. He can find funny in just about anything, to hell with levels of appropriateness. He is a rabid Buckeye fan, and a Republican though. With those two strikes already against him, he’s really got no other choice than to be funny. In my eyes, the two worst qualities you can have are to be a Republican and a fan of a team whose mascot is a poisonous NUT, so you better damn well have a redeeming quality. The day I stop laughing at your jokes, Adam, is the day that my strictly-non-gay man-crush on you is OVER!! GO BLUE!!!

Anyway, Adam walks out of the kitchen, holding the shield. With a quizzical look on his face, he asks, “What is this thing?”

That was when he found funny. He didn’t wait for Sarah to say, “That’s the thing I put on my hoot hoot when I need to pump breast milk for my baby.” He didn’t wait for Melanie to say, “Adam, put that down, you jackass.”

Nope… Adam found funny. So, instead of waiting for a response, he continued.

“It looks like something you’d take a shot out of.”

He then acts as if he’s taking a shot of whiskey. He holds the shield over his head, cranes his neck back and opens his mouth. He didn’t bring the shield down to his mouth or anything, because that would be gross. He just held it about 8 inches above his mouth… BUT….

drip…. drip…..

Right into his mouth. It was a bullseye shot directly into his gullet.

It was at that exact moment that Sarah informed him of the purpose of the item he had in his hands. Adam’s face contorted slowly from a look of “did that just happen?” to one that was a mixture of revulsion, terror, embarrassment, and utter disgust. It is beyond me how he was able to keep from getting a second showing of his breakfast, because he looked darn close to bringing it all back up. It was kinda like that scene in Van Wilder when the frat boys find out that their doughnuts aren’t filled with custard.

“Mmmmmm…. I think I’ve had these before”

Sarah – evil girl that she is (but that’s why I love her) – waits until all this has happened before saying, “I washed it out already. It’s clean.” I’m sure that didn’t do much to alleviate Adam’s disgust though. Think about it… if it were you, would you feel better? I wouldn’t. For as long as we all live, Adam will be the guy that got some of my wife’s breastmilk residue in his mouth. She could have washed it out with bleach using an industrial sized power-washer, but he’d still be that guy.

The Deep Freeze

September 2nd, 2008 | Posted by Joe in breast milk | freezer - (4 Comments)
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A family-self-portrait
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Sarah desperately wants a deep freezer. It turns out that (breast) milk takes up quite a bit of space in a freezer. We’ve got a side-by-side fridge. I honestly couldn’t tell you if freezers are bigger in those or the ones where the freezer is on top. I can tell you that our freezer *seems* a heck-of-a-lot smaller. It’s at the point where we are both scared to open our freezer, for fear that we may be buried in a heap of frozen milk bags.

She used to drop subtle hints about us needing a deep freezer (chest freezer). Now, she’s becoming more – uhhh – clear on her desires for one.

Before Tyler was born, she would say, “I hope the freezer is big enough to store a bunch of milk.”

I would respond with, “Oh yeah… Plenty of room.”

Then it became, “The freezer’s filling up with milk. We’re gonna have to figure something out, sometime.”

A couple days ago, I said, “Yay! Fable II is coming out soon for the Xbox360.”

She responded with, “We need a freezer.”

Today, Sarah called me to say “good morning”. I was driving down to Indianapolis for business. I drove by something that caught my eye.

“It probably won’t be a long day today, because my sales rep has my power tools. I’ll have to hook up with him on Wednesd-oooooooooooooooo.”

Sarah said, “What? What’s going on?”

Completely, 100% joking, I said, “Oh, I just saw a dune buggy for sale, but there was no price on it.”

“No. We need a freezer.”

Subtle? No. Tactful? Nope. My fault? Likely. After all, I’ve told Sarah that, because I am a member of the male populous, and because my primary fuel is testosterone, hints and sublety do not compute. If you want something, just say it. I guess that’s what she’s doing, eh? Or maybe she is *somehow* hinting that she wants a new pair of shoes. Women make no sense to me.

There’s no room for a freezer in our kitchen. The basement leaks like a sieve, so it can’t go down there, due to the likelihood of flooding when it rains. This leaves the garage.

Allow me to clarify. This leaves our uninsulated garage. Our too-hot-in-the-summer, too-cold-in-the-winter garage. I worried, because I figured that the hot weather would wreak havok on a freezer. It would appear, thank you very much to Google, that COLD weather is what’s bad. When it gets very cold, the compressor can’t start, but it still tries to. Also, the oil collects at the bottom and gets very thick, and thus, doesn’t circulate well at all. As a result, the starter and/or compressor tend to burn up and require replacement. A lot.

I could just get a freezer that is designed for unheated spaces. They only cost an additional $1,500. 2 things immediately come to mind, which leads to a 3rd thought:

1) They exist
2) We’re not getting one, because they cost too much

Which leads to

3) I bet I can modify one of the cheap $200 models to work in my garage.

After a little more googling/brainstorming, here’s what I’m thinking. If the main concern is the compressor getting too cold, I need some type of automated timer with a heater. I can get something called a foil-coil or drain trough heater. I can wrap that around the compressor. To automate it, I can get a defrost module/thermostat from an appliance repair shop. I’ll set it for 40º – 50º fahrenheit (minimal operating temperature), and place the actual thermostat on the compressor.

The theory is this. During the winter, if the metal on the compressor drops below 40º, the defrost module kicks the foil-coil on and keeps the compressor above it’s minimal operating temperature.

Wiring will be a little tricky. I don’t want the compressor trying to start while the foil-coil is running. Basically, when the thermostat hits 40º, I need to divert the 110vAC away from the starter/compressor and to the foil-coil. A relay should take care of that. Then when the thermostat senses that we’re back up to operating temperature, it’ll kick off and send power back to the starter to fire up the compressor. EDIT: This is exactly what I’m talking about!!!

Am I missing anything here, aside from the obvious danger of burning down my garage? Sarah would be fine with the risks involved. To Sarah, her need for a freezer outranks my need for a garage. I can see it now.

Scene: It’s a cold winter afternoon. Fade to the kitchen. Joe is looking out the window. The room is illuminated with dancing orange and yellow lights. A firetruck siren screams in the backgound. A single tear escapes and begins its journey down a face that is devoid of all color.

“Sarah, the freezer caught fire and burned down the garage. Everything’s gone.”

The tear hangs precariously from his jaw, threatening to break free of its hold. A slideshow of images flash across Joe’s mind. A bike, a car, tools, old photos, his son’s red wagon. His heart feels heavier and heavier. As the images continue to splash his memory, the tear falls. He shifts his gaze to Sarah. She returns his stare. Joe can see, with only a fleeting moment of relief, that his despair is echoed in her.

She says, slowly and quietly, “Is the milk ok?”

Fade to black…. aaaaannnnnd end scene.