Happy Dump day Eliot

Oct 14

Two weeks ago, I had about 40% of a post written, and then any number of things distracted me and I didn't post it. Most of what I had was irrelevant. Instead of posting old news, I decided today was a good day to post a celebration of what is instead of a post-mortem on the weeks that were.

Wednesday the 14th is Eliot's birthday. There is a movement in some parenting circles asking parents to email children on their birthday or throughout their childhood. This is so when they finally receive access to the Gmail account you secured for them in the days before their birth, there are more than just many years worth of spam waiting for them. I will send parts of this to Eliot's Gmail address—secured days before his birth— but since he can't read yet, I will also post it here for you, my slightly more literate reader.

Dear Eliot Madison,

The worst advice I received about parenting is "Sleep when he sleeps." At some future date, I implore you to come up with better advice to give new parents than this trite four-word piece of garbage adage. In the first year, you slept: a little, a lot, sometimes, not enough, consistently, on schedule, when you felt like it, in my arms, after rocking, before pooping, after pooping, in your mother's arms, in a car, never in the car, on your side, on your back, on your stomach, in a swaddle, with white noise, never without white noise, in the darkness, and in the light. Basing my sleep schedules on your sleep schedules seems like a Sisyphean task. Sometimes, I am simply not ready to go to bed at 5:30 on a Tuesday in the middle of the summer, but lord knows, sometimes you were.

It's easy to think about where we are now, on the precipice of your first steps and months away from words, and only focus on the events left to come. But on your first birthday, I want to reflect on some of the peaks and valleys we had together. These memories won't be etched into your brain like they are mine, but I assure you, they happened and you were there! It's my job to act as an Eliot biographer and tell you about them. For example, I bet you have no memory of the time we kept a poop diary about your stool, complete with a photo album. We called it the Log of Logs. And ultimately, no one ever looked at it and there was no reason to have done that at all.

Let's start at the start, though I promise this won't be a moment by moment retelling of your first year. Who has time for that? Did you know that I was pretty hungover when your mother came into the bedroom to tell me her water had broken and it was time to go? Two weeks early! And a few hours before sunrise. Off to the hospital for the tremendous waiting game of 2019. I'll spare you the breakdown of how we spent the next 55 hours except to tell you, you hadn't arrived and showed few signs of being interested in joining us. We waited so long that we finally decided that we'd have to do this birth by Caesarian section. It wasn't part of the birth plan, but neither was waiting 57 hours for something to happen; sometimes, plans change.

IMG_0865 (1).jpg — Just home from the hospital

The joke was on us because by the time we signed the papers and got all set, you had moved into position for go-time. Your mother will probably never let you forget how much you made her push, but I'll just say, for me, on the non-pushing side of things, the time flew by. And then, there you were.

I cried. No use pretending anything other than the truth here. Tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of I haven't slept well in 2 days and will never sleep well again. I sobbed. Someone told me you were pretty but I don't know… a lot was happening. I'll take their word for it.

Our next major event came about 10 days later. Soon after we staged some adorable newborn photos that you will have undoubtedly seen and hope we lose in a fire, we went to the US embassy. There I was told I wasn't American enough to pass on my citizenship to you (don't worry, we took care of it. You're an American), then, we noticed that you had some serious gunk coming out of your eye. I am going to say right eye, but the truth is, I don't know. Looking at you is like looking in a mirror. I can never tell right from left. It was Thursday afternoon, and I wanted to just pop out to the clinic to get it looked at, to assuage our fears heading into the weekend.

Here's a piece of advice: Don't go to the hospital to assuage your fears. That never happens.

We should have just wiped it away and taken the family's advice, who told us it was fine. Instead, you were rushed into the NICU because a British ER attending didn't like that I was pretty sure I knew what was going on. She told me I was risking your vision and your life based on some google searches. I had more than google on my side for the record, but I wasn't willing to risk it. Jordanian nurses tried to get an IV inserted into your tiny hand. This process was hard to watch and painful to hear. You cried so much. It took very long. Your mother was a wreck.

Turns out Elio, you were okay. They kept you at the hospital for about 36 hours of observation before a doctor said: the only diagnosis I have for your son is that he's cute. Go home. This may be a line he tells all of his patients, but it's a great line, and I endorse all doctors to use it. You can imagine our horror when we received a phone call the next morning telling us you had a severe blood infection (totally separate from the eye concern). We needed to take you back to the hospital for more tests and observations—30 more hours of waiting and watching. I want you to know that you were a real champ during this time. You hardly cried. You just lay around. Totally oblivious to the panic your mom and I felt. And then, the same doctor, on his off day, came back in to tell us to go home again. The Jordanians who inserted the IV and took the sample had contaminated the needle (tiny hands). The blood draw was bad. You were fine—the whole time.

And that's why you don't go to the hospital for small things.

The next moment I want you to know about is the time we flew about 90 miles, and it took 7-hours because we missed one flight and got fogged out of another. There's no way you'd know about this because, my guy, you slept the entire time. I think mom would say this was the peak of her ability to hold you. It's been all downhill since then for her holding skills. You just slept in her arms for the day as we sat in airport lounges and waited to see family in Abu Dhabi. I probably will never forget the all-we-could-eat, all-we-could-drink Christmas brunch we had at the Oman International Airport lounge. It was weird but enjoyable.

Let's talk about the second time I remember making you cry and one that I will also probably never forget. It happened in February, near Valentine's day. Uncle Joe and Aunt Adri were visiting, and we decided to go for a walk at the Pearl. It was a lovely February day. Maybe when you are reading this, we will be somewhere warm for February, but as I type it, I am looking ahead to terribly cold Februarys for the foreseeable future, and that bums me out. Cold Februarys are one of the reasons I left in the first place. I digress. We were in an Italian restaurant at the Pearl when I lifted you up and didn't take note of my surroundings and banged your head into the corner of a hanging light fixture. You didn't like it. And cried. I was convinced I'd dented your head. I spent the rest of the day putting you through the concussion protocol, checking for damage and making sure you were still awake.

Baby concussions are nothing to trifle with.

By now, there are books written about the next few months of your life, El; you'll study the era in history classes. March was terrible. Anxiety and panic Skyrocketed. Faceshields, face masks, rubber gloves became the norm. Should I buy a tarp to wrap around my body when I'm outside? Do we have enough milk? Can I still order momos?

The day mom's interview at the embassy was abruptly canceled, we were getting you ready for a nap. You were in my arms when she got the call. You were screaming and crying. I managed to put you down, but then I had to go deal with mom, who, similarly, was screaming and crying. That day sucked. It definitely rivaled the hospital day(s) as the low point of the year. We just felt so helpless. And then we'd look at you, actually helpless, and wonder how it was that we were expected to care for you when we were struggling to take care of ourselves. We righted the ship, eventually. To be honest, maybe we didn't right it as much as we just got used to living partially submerged in the muck subsisting on misplaced optimism, delusion and avoidance.

I had partially committed to, mentally, being trapped in Qatar for another year. I was trying to get back in that mindset in case Covid really was as bad as they said it was (narrator: it was). And then, magically, the embassy rescheduled, your mom was approved, and we sprinted for the exit! I sold most of your toys (and everything else in the apartment) to strangers on the internet. We actively didn't encourage you to crawl or slither for about 5 weeks between your 7th and 8th month. Our 23rd story apartment was good for lots of things. Baby movement was not one of them. We also didn't want any more complications with flying than what COVID already presented. Masks, gloves, shields and the works PLUS a crawling baby? No thanks. Yeah, we tried our best to keep you in one small space out of fear you would prove to be an expert at ambulation and want to show off on a 14-hour international flight.

Once again, you proved to be a real treat to fly with. You just barely fit in the airplane-provided bassinet, and you managed to sleep enough on and off that both your mother and I were able to get some rest. The fact that the flight was as unmemorable as it seems to be now, 5.5 months later, leads me to believe everything was fine. No one was sick. No one became sick. There was minimal drama (aside from yelling at some flight crew), and we made it to America safely.

Spotted: mother trying to feed baby on 14-hour flight

It went okay

The rest of your first year was spent in Minnesota. You spent the first three months a block away from an internationally recognized protest and memorial site on the corner of 38th and Chicago Ave in Minneapolis. You waved at thousands of mourners and protesters from around the world who came to pay their respects. You slept through motorcades and parades and gunshots and fireworks. We walked through the site and paid our respects but mostly avoided the area.

And then we moved.

Sure, just a few blocks away, but into a space that you've really become the master of in a short time. From crawling through shelves and exploring the fireplace to pounding on windows and making a mess in the dining room, you helped turn our house into a home. Our house search required us to have space for you to grow, and Big E, have you ever. Your love of books and making noise brings endless hours of joy to Leen and me.

Your fascination with water in the bathtub during our nightly soak-sesh is a highlight of my day. Putting you down for naps still causes anxiety for everyone, but maybe that will pass. The way that you nibble on crackers and gobble down cheese are truly sights to be seen. You hardly fit in any of the clothes we have for you, and that causes your mother to worry that you won't be warm enough far more than she probably needs to.

You’re a bit obsessed with iPhones and #Twinsthenewtrend. You love music and being outside. I love chasing you around the basement and building you kitchens even if it takes me until 1 in the morning. I love your toothy smile and your wild hair and your tiny hands, even if the nails on them routinely cut your face. I love you so much it's hard to figure out exactly what to write about next.

Hopefully, by now, you get the point.

You're a growing, happy, inquisitive child who does not like to cuddle or sit still, even though sometimes it would be nice to just relax with you.

Eliot Madison Hasler, thank you for making October 14th a day to remember, and this year, despite a lot of bad things, a great year.

I love you,

Dad