Taxi

I will be telling Teo's birth story over the next few days. Let's begin with the taxi ride to the hospital...

Taxi by Daquella manera.

I didn't say anything to the taxi driver about my wife being in labor when we climbed in the back seat of his car, but when I told him to drop us off at the hospital, I saw him eying April's round belly in the rear-view mirror.

I wanted him to drive fast like a scene from the movies, but instead, he was cautious and pulled away from each stoplight like he had a trunk full of china dishes.

As we pulled up to the curb at the entrance of the hospital, I turned to April, "Alright, last chance, do you think we're having a boy or a girl?"

April pushed open the car door, grabbed the doorframe with both hands, and grimaced as she hoisted herself to her feet.

"I don't care what it is," I heard her say as she started walking towards the entrance. "I just want it out."

Bottom of the Totem Pole

Totem Pole Vancouver, originally uploaded by Kevin Grahame.

I stirred awake to the sound of Alleke sobbing from her bedroom. "Daddy," she screamed, trying to escape a bad dream.

I opened my eyes. I was sitting in the rocking chair in the living room, blanketed by shadows, with Teo asleep in my arms.

I struggled out of the chair like a pregnant woman and felt my way through the apartment to our bedroom where April was napping between feedings during the graveyard shift. I wanted her to sleep, so I reached across the bed and turned off the red light on the baby monitor. The speaker went dead, and the tormented ramblings of Alleke untangling herself from a bad dream shifted next door where I found her sitting up in bed and blubbering nonsense like someone who had just witnessed something so horrible they could no longer get their words straight. I closed the door behind me, and with Toe in one arm, I ran my finger through Alleke's silvery hair, and I said, "Alleke, I'm here."

As if released from a spell, she lay down in bed, still whimpering, and I pulled the covers up over her shoulders. I sat on the edge of the futon on the far side of her room and sang lullabies to my children. When Alleke was fast asleep, I sat down in the rocking chair in the living room again and fell asleep until the alarm on my mobile phone woke up me up. It was time to get Alleke ready for school.

Later that morning after I had dropped Alleke off at school, I made a pot of tea, and April and I sat on the couch while Teo napped on April's lap, and we talked—for the first time since Teo had been born a week earlier.

"How are you?" April asked.

I smirked. "You know better than to ask that question," I said. It seemed almost cruel to ask the question when we had a newborn in the house, like asking a college student in the middle of final exams how he was doing. It was better not even to ask, but simply to push through.

I entertained the question, however, and then I said something that seemed entirely random.

"I'm at the bottom of the totem pole, aren't I?" I asked.

April smiled gracefully and thought for a moment, and then said, "Yeah, you are."

"You're definitely the busiest person in our family right now, but I'm the last priority," I continued. "I take care of you and I take care of the kids, and you take care of you and you take care of the kids, and that's the way it should be, but it means I don't make the list right now."

April smiled an apology, which didn't help me as much as it did to simply put into words how I was feeling about being the dad of a newborn again. I really don't know why we as adults want to have kids when in the end what it really amounts to is giving away our rights and our time and our resources and our ambitions to take care of someone else. We give away our freedom to be someone else's servant, but somehow in the end when we ring it all up at the till, it's priceless, and we would fight to the death for the experience to raise our children.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Moo Cluck Chocolate Chip Cookies Baked by Veganbaking.net.

The buzzer rang. Alleke beat me to the front door, and while I picked up the phone and buzzed in our friends below at the entrance to our apartment building, Alleke pounded on the door and chanted, "Open, open, open." I clicked open the door, and she escaped into the hallway, shivering with excitement.

Of course our friends had come to see the baby, Teo. They would not have been sitting on our couches on a Thursday afternoon otherwise. Still, Alleke was doing everything she could to entertain them. She asked me to toss her in the air like a trapeze artist, but when our friends were taking pictures with Teo instead of watching her, she disappeared in her room to regroup.

"Look at me," Alleke said from her doorway in a yellow sundress with white polka dots and rainbow tights as she walked her invisible catwalk through our living room. Our friends said how cute she was, but Alleke still didn't seem satisfied. Maybe she sensed their hearts were divided.

In a last ditch effort, Alleke asked me if she could hold her baby brother. As they say, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

I frowned and shook my head. "No," I explained, "our friends are only here for a short visit, and we want to give them the chance to hold Teo too."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I had I said something wrong. Alleke crawled into my lap and buried her head in my chest. I held her in my arms and looked around the room for something that might make her feel special. I spotted a Ziploc bag full of chocolate chip cookies sitting on the kitchen counter. April had made them the day before Teo was born.

"I've got an idea," I whispered in Alleke's ear. "Follow me."

She took my hand and followed me into the kitchen. She started to giggle when she saw me open the Ziploc bag and shake the cookies onto a plate.

"Do you think our friends might want a cookie?" I asked Alleke.

She nodded her head excitedly. I handed her the plate, and she turned and ran out of the kitchen. Just as I started to yell after her, "Alleke, don't run with the cookies," I watched her foot get tangled in a pile of laundry sitting in the doorway. She stumbled forward, broke free, and then dove head first for the floor. She landed on the floor with the plate in her hands in front of her like a football player diving for the end zone, but when the plate smacked the floor, the cookies sprung into the air like grasshoppers. Some fell to pieces when they hit the ground, and others rolled under the furniture.

Everyone was watching Alleke as she picked herself up off the ground and ran over and hid behind the television. It was the first time I had seen my daughter embarrassed of herself, and I hated it. It seemed unfair that she had to feel ashamed of herself for something as insignificant as dropping a plate of cookies when she was already dealing with so much this week. She was entirely unsure of who she was now that she had a little brother to compete with, and she was hoping that someone...anyone...would notice her as the little girl who had not changed. The little girl who used to get everyone's attention.

Parents with two or more kids had told me that when we had our second we would discover that there's always more love to give. You never run out of love, they said. They may be right that our capacity to love is infinite, but I say it's still hard to pay attention to two kids at the same time.

Teo's 1st Bath

As a form of self redemption, I post this video of me giving Teo his first bath. Some of my oldest blog readers will remember how painful it was to watch me as a new dad give Alleke her first bath back in 2006. Well, if you're willing to give me a second chance, watch the video below...



Alleke thought Teo's bath looked like fun, so she took a bath too.



Rewind back to 2006 and watch me as a new dad give Alleke her first bath...

Teo photos

Watch slideshow fullscreen...

Alleke, Meet Teo

Alleke meets her baby brother for the first time.

Alleke, Meet Teo from Kelly Crull on Vimeo.

More photos on the way tomorrow...

Update: Wednesday, 8:03am
Click here to see photos of Teo as I upload them...

It's a BOY!

SATURDAY
6pm we went for a walk
8:45pm we called the midwife
10:20pm we called the midwife again
10:30pm we left for the hospital
11:10pm we checked into the hospital

SUNDAY
12:00am April labored on a yoga ball
12:30 April moved to the bathtub for a water birth
1:35am Teo was born
11:20am Alleke met her baby brother
6:00pm we arrived home with Teo

We´re at the hospital.

April is 4 cm dialated, and it looks like we´re going to have a baby soon.

Last time we arrived at the hospital just in time for the doctor to catch little Alleke, so we´re thankful that this time is proving to be quite different. April is asleep in her hospital bed, and our doctor let me borrow her laptop for a couple minutes to write you this update.

Alleke is asleep at home. Our friend and colleague Amy is having a ¨slumber party¨ with her. When we were still at home, I put Alleke to bed, and I said, ¨Alleke, tonight, I´m not going to have time to sing you a lullaby and rub your back. I have to help mama.¨

¨That´s okay, daddy,¨she said and gave me a big hug.

I´m so proud of her, and I´m amazed at how aware she is of the whole thing. Smart cookie!