{"id":779,"date":"2010-08-06T20:27:13","date_gmt":"2010-08-07T01:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=779"},"modified":"2010-08-07T16:53:59","modified_gmt":"2010-08-07T21:53:59","slug":"isla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/08\/isla\/","title":{"rendered":"Isla"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, 28 July 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, I am a father\u2026again. But this time to a daughter! Isla Fayette was born on 28 July at 5:04 in the morning. She was born on a Wednesday, just like her dad. Unlike Owen and me, however, she was born on a bright, sunny day (once the sun rose, that is).<\/p>\n

Regarding the birth, there\u2019s probably not too much else I can or want to say here on this blog beyond what I already wrote on Owen\u2019s blog, which you can read here: CLICK THIS<\/a>. I suppose it\u2019s time to update that blog, too, since it\u2019s not just for Owen any longer.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Owen, he\u2019s been a big help. He\u2019s more than happy to hold Isla, or just put his hand on her head. He helped me drain the tub, too. He kept making sure the line wasn\u2019t chinked and he kept running into the bathroom to ensure the water was draining away down the toilet.<\/p>\n

My two big concerns about having the tub here at the apartment were, first, that the weight of the tub would cause it to go crashing through the floor and, second, that I\u2019d do something wrong in filling or draining the tub and end up spilling a couple of hundred gallons onto the floor. As it turns out, a little bit of competence \u2013 and some of that help from Owen \u2013 keeps any spills from happening. The only slight problem I had was that, contrary to what the woman who delivered our tub told us, I couldn\u2019t just set the hose in the toilet and set the seat on top of it. This is because either the water pressure was too strong and it flung out of the toilet, or the water pressure was so weak that the weight of the toilet seat squeezed the hose and prevented the tub from draining. So I pulled out the trusty duct tape, and all was well.<\/p>\n

Actually, living in an apartment provided two positives for using a birth tub. First: there\u2019s essentially unlimited hot water. See, in a house, I would maybe have 50 gallons of hot water, and then would need to wait while the heater refilled and heated before filling the tub the rest of the way. But here, I just turned on the cold and hot water all the way and \u2013 viola!<\/em> \u2013the tub was filled in <30 minutes. Second: big garbage bins. In a house, I would\u2019ve had to stuff a lot of stuff into our garbage bin, but here, I just carried out the tub liner and some other pieces of trash and flung them into oblivion.<\/p>\n

Thursday, 29 July 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, Owen and I ran out to Abdallah Chocolate Factory in Burnsville to pick up some chocolate \u201cIt\u2019s a Girl!\u201d cigars (which you will receive if you are one of Isla\u2019s first 24 visitors). Afterward, I asked Owen if he wanted to see where I grew up, since it\u2019s only about a mile from the Chocolate Factory. Owen said yes, so I drove on.<\/p>\n

I drove him to a mobile home park. I lived in that park for nearly 15 years: over seven years in one mobile home, and seven more years in the next mobile home. It was very strange driving into the park. After years of sitting in the back seat as a kid, or riding my bike around the park, suddenly I was there as an adult. All sorts of memories came flooding back. I showed Owen the hill my sister and I used to race our bikes down, I showed him where I waited for the bus, the Laundromat, the playground, and I even pointed out the former residences of people I used to know.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the depressing thing: neither mobile home I lived in was there any more. I knew that the first one I live in was gone, because that one was gone years ago. So I showed Owen the lot where mobile home #24 was located, but then when I took him over to lot #56, well, that mobile home wasn\u2019t there either. It was replaced with an inferior mobile home.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s another thing \u2013 I know it sounds silly to say so, but Camelot Acres used to be a nice mobile home park. My parents even had to pay extra to live there because it was rated the nicest one in the state. They had all these silly rules, like no playgrounds in the yards, no fences, and no dogs, just to keep the place looking nicer. Unlike nearly every other mobile home park, they didn\u2019t have any speed bumps, either. Now\u2026things are different. There\u2019s a trashy fence behind lot #24, blocking the hill where we once grew a massive garden. Lots of yards had rusted, cheap playgrounds, and worst of all \u2013 there are now speed bumps! Yuck! Even the park \u2013 which used to have that regal sounding name of Camelot Acres (the rental office was built to look like a castle!) \u2013 has now changed its name to Arbor Vista. Arbor Vista?<\/em> What\u2019s with that? That\u2019s like, the blandest name ever. What housing community doesn\u2019t <\/em>cobble together two words consisting of something relating to plants and something relating to how those plants are treated?<\/p>\n

I think Owen could sense my disappointment. Me, I was surprised how disappointed I could be about a freakin\u2019 mobile home park I haven\u2019t lived in for many years.<\/p>\n

Friday, 30 July 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today was the first day that felt like a new routine was starting. There was no visit from the midwives today, and Owen and I didn\u2019t go out to run any errands. The four of us just stayed home. We took some pictures of Isla in her coming home outfit, and we shot some video.<\/p>\n

Isla slept better last night than she did on her first night. I am hoping to not repeat Owen\u2019s first year of life, wherein he screamed every night from 8:00 \u2013 midnight. He was a good sleeper, though, it was just a matter of getting him to that state of unconsciousness. Last night, I paced the apartment with Isla in my arms, trying to get her to sleep. She was alert \u2013 staring at me and looking at the lights from outside the windows \u2013 but at least she wasn\u2019t making any noises. This is good, because I don\u2019t mind becoming tired as much as I mind becoming insane.<\/p>\n

Saturday, 31 July 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s some recent dialogue\u2026<\/p>\n

Me: Owen, did you just toot?<\/p>\n

Owen: No, that was Isla. It\u2019s always Isla.<\/p>\n

Later\u2026<\/p>\n

Me (handing Owen a wrapped up dirty diaper): Here, Owen, can you go throw this away for me?<\/p>\n

Owen: Eww. No. I\u2019m not gonna do that. Don\u2019t ever ask me to do that again.<\/p>\n

Speaking of infants\u2019 bodily functions, I totally forgot this (or maybe it was a mental block), but did you know that newborn babies like nothing more than to get poop on their ankles? Yep, it\u2019s true, their legs are constructed in such a way so that they snap, frog-like, into this tightly balled-up position wherein their ankles are squarely snugged next to their butt hole. Normally, this is a really cut thing \u2013 \u201cAww, look how cute her little legs are, all folded up like that!\u201d But when changing a diaper, it\u2019s not so cute. See, the adult has to use their hands to get the diaper off, so they\u2019re not paying attention when SNAP! Those legs fold up and ankles meet anus. Newborns especially love to do this if they have socks on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, 28 July 2010 So, I am a father\u2026again. But this time to a daughter! Isla Fayette was born on 28 July at 5:04 in the morning. She was born on a Wednesday, just like her dad. Unlike Owen and me, however, she was born on a bright, sunny day (once the sun rose, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions\/785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}