smonk you: the best freaking daddy blog ever

  I was thinking it would be cool to figure out the carbon footprint of Miloh's first year of life. I wanted to include not only diapers, laundry and clothes but also car seats and all the things that need to be replaced every few months. But I realized that would be a huge pain in my ass...so instead we decided to take counts of day to day things in Miloh's life. Every Sunday or Monday I'll try to upload a new infographic of what that week was like. The weeks run from Friday until Thursday.

A bit ago I was flattered by an email from Mandy over at Harper's Happenings asking me if I'd write a guest post for her blog...I was like sure, I'll knock it out in a week before our, then unknown, baby was born...then as you can read from my last blog entry baby Miloh came a week early. The post I was going to write morphed a bit...since Miloh's here...but this is what you'll get if you read my guest post ; you'll learn what my best written school paper was about, you'll read about how the name smonk you came to be...this is a huge exclusive that even TMZ couldn't break, you'll read about my soon to be famous recipe for Vietnamese noodle salad and of course there are some musings about me being a dad and daddy blogger. While you're there you can lurk around Mandy's blog ...you'll see posts named after Duran Duran songs that include videos of Harper (a soon to be model) showing you how big she is and you can get Mandy's recipe...

I decided to write this birth story from my point of view since most of the ones you read are obviously from moms. So since I'm doing it this way I should just make a point to say Staci is amazing. Her strength blew me away. I guess it all started the Tuesday before when Staci was at the doctor. The baby (we didn't know who it was yet) was a good size and pretty well cooked since it was only one week before the due date. There was some worry that because of Staci's gestational diabetes the baby would be to big for regular birth (I don't want to say the V word since it's not mine I'd be talking about...not that I have one...this is getting awkward) So the doctor wanted to induce. The date was set and we'd head to the hospital Thursday the 21st. On Wednesday her contractions began. Before that she'd have some on and off but these we definitely different. Nothing frequent enough so we waited until our scheduled appointment. Thursday morning came alon...

Hey, did you come here from Facebook? Just wondering who posted the link? I'm getting a bunch of traffic so I'm curious/flattered. Please let me know via the comments...

This site started as a pre-daddy blog but will continue as a story about Miloh, Staci and me. We are a bit tired but I get a proper post up soon. In the meantime here is what we know about the genetics post I wrote the other day. Eyes: genetics say brown because but they are blue now. This may change. Hair: genetics say dark. Right now it is a great surfer dirty blonde...this may also change. Widow's peak: looks like he has one...an awesome one. Earlobes: genetics said unattached and they are. Only 5 fingers That's all we know for now. More pics and stories later.

I've been doing the Gear Thursdays for a bit but forgot the most important piece of gear...a baby. Miloh (boy) Born: January 22 at 5:17 7lb 3oz, 20 inches long Staci was amazing. Everyone is doing awesome.

Tomorrow we're headed to the hospital so they can induce Staci. Both her and the pre-kid (last time I can say that) are doing fine. However because of Staci's gestational diabetes and the babies size the doctors think it's best to deliver now. It's only a week early so that's all good. So, yeah, we're super excited and pretty freaked out...if a week ago you asked if we were ready the answer would have been yes...then once we knew the date we were going in, vs. being unsure, we totally felt unprepared...funny how that works. Next post will be a baby pic, name, stats and all that.

Typo warning...this was sent from my phone. One: Last Friday on Twitter I gave it an 87% chance that we were having the baby that day. There are a few scientific reasons for that; I missed the bus and had to take our car so Staci was kind of stranded, I had a migraine trying to shut me down and a bunch of people thought it was the day.  We're still waiting. Two:  The reason I had a headache was because I have been clenching my jaw at night (I may be stressed about having the kid.) The clenching leads to jaw pain which leads to a headache that has triggered migraines. I used to do it a lot to the extent that I'd have small chips of teethe randomly break off. All the chips were repaired and I haven't been clenching in about three years. But the other day one of those tiny chip replacement/fillers broke off. It's hardly noticeable...not like The Hangover. Three: Even though it's a tiny chip I want to get it replaced. To do this the dentist matches the filler to your to...

Okay...I promised a post on our floor bed and the whole deal with floor beds in general. Honestly right now as I start this post I don't know a ton about them. Staci does because friends of her's have used them and she read the book Montessori from the Start ...plus it follows tenets of the Montessori philosophy which she teaches. I've absorbed some of the info from her and such but we'll learn together as I wade through some websites. That all being the case think of this as a Cliffs Notes version of floor beds...and I have learned from experience that teaches are correct that you can't pass the test by reading the Cliffs Notes alone. It's easy to explain what it is...just a crib mattress on the floor. You can add a floor bed frame, which is a 3 sided wood frame, but people we've talked to see them as a waste and a place for shins to bang into. You also need to set up the room so it's a completely safe place...every thing at reach is age appropriat...

I probably should have mentioned last week that we hit 37 week mark. It's a great milestone because that means the pre-kid is full term. But let's be honest...it's a bit overshadowed by the next milestone...birth. According  to the math we're due in two weeks...well two weeks and a day to be honest. Now it's a waiting game. For me it's very much like when I've quit a job. The time left is rather short...except in a way it's painfully long. I'm just kind of waiting around. Everyone knows this time waiting around is a bit useless. And my head is already in the game of my next job...being a dad. I have nothing left to do. The room is done. I finally painted our back entrance which had paint swatches on it for two years. I made some mobiles for tummy time. Now I'm just hanging here. Actually I do have one job...get myself some bars to eat while we're at the hospital...but it's like that last task at work. If I don't do it no one w...

I recently read a great post from Jill at Baby Rabies about what it means to be a mom to a boy. It made me think about what it would be like to be a dad to a girl...because there is a 50/50 chance of that happening to me. But since we don't know what we're having it made me think broader to what is it like to be a dad, and that made me think of what I think a good dad is. A lot of people tell me that I'm going to be a great dad...I really appreciate the comments. I said before that I probably owe a lot of that to my father because he was, and I'm assuming is still, a total ass. At a young age I learned things that make a bad person and tried to do the opposite. And I did have some great male role models...and had role models of great dads of friends...but there is a subtle difference there that left me with not truly understanding what a good dad is, if that makes sense. A quick Google search of "how to be a good dad" will bring a few hits that include ...

I screwed up a bit in trying to stretch the baby room into three posts because I showed all the good pics of the room yesterday so this is a bit redundant, but I'm going to call out what we have in the room. So here goes... Marcel the Monkey from Design Public . We put the wood square so it's at eye level for our baby when we walk in the room holding it. Lot's of stuff here. The paint color is Robin's Nest from Benjamin Moore. It's no VOC but if I had to do over I'd have Sherwin Williams match it in their no VOC Harmony paint. I like the folks at my Sherman Williams better and stuff I've used in the past had better coverage than the Ben stuff. The wall shelves and cube bookcase are from a super exclusive Swedish design store called Ikea. We went there because it fits our design sense and because it's pretty inexpensive, plus their quality is much better than it used to be. We also want to let our room evolve with our child so we didn't want to...

This post comes with a crappy giveaway. The first person to leave a comment below with a correct guess of what inspired the title will get a $5 gift card to Caribou, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf or whatever your fave coffee place is. Yeah it's a tiny little prize but it's so no one cheats via Google or such and because I'd really just want to buy a drink for the winner but if you don't live in the Twin Cities it might be hard to meet up.

Some folks have been getting on me that my posting frequency has tapered off a bit. That's because really at this stage in the game it's a lot of waiting around for me...Staci's really going through all the shenanigans. SO I'm going to take what could be one post and make it into three. We finally finished the baby room and I thought I'd show the progress...today a little video, tomorrow some pics and then I'll point out some of the stuff in the room Thursday. As I started to paint I decided to do some time lapse of the process of getting the room together. As it this was my first try at time lapse with my Mac I was figuring out frame rate as I did this...so it's a super short (25 secs) little video. I think I'll add to it once we get baby M in there. Also I'm gonna try to re-cut it a bit as I have only worked with Final Cut and I need to figure iMovie out a bit. So think of this as a teaser to the room reveal and a trailer to something in progre...

I caught just a bit of this week's This American Life ...it was about predictions for 2010. There was a segment with a guy trying to figure out what his daughter would look like based on what he and his wife look like. A friend of his makes the comment that although we know dominance in genetics it's not cut and dry because our traits have inter-bred for so long. If I remember correctly even though I have brown eyes our child could have blue eyes because I may carry some of the recessive gene..Staci's eyes are blue. But like the guy (I forget his name) in the segment I can use the dominant/recessive genes as a guide.  (Left: Staci, Right: Me with my grandfather (I'm the shorter one). So if we go on straight dominance/recessiveness of genes here is what our baby will be like, unless noted the traits I pull out are dominant: Brown-eyed (me) Dark hair (me...although I had blond hair when I was young. I also had, and still have, sexy shoulders) Curly hair (Staci.....