Stork bites (鹳咬)

As a new parent, one of the most common things to do is check baby for any issues: crying is the obvious indicator of something wrong, but it's now our responsiblity to notice anything off about baby's skin color, poop, how she feeds, making noises, maybe choking on something. It's like taking care of a whole new human being who cannot speak or reason at all, you just have to know what's good for them. It must be like taking care of a pet, except less hair (at the beginning) and the pet looks a lot more human and like us. And the possibility of the baby wanting to be attached to us ALL THE TIME, almost 24/7. She is still in a primitive state, wanting to be back in the womb, and any way to simulate that environment soothes her, whether it be being held in my arms, riding in a carseat that simulates the rhythms of the womb, or her favorite position, being held against the chest.....they all soothe her. Being assigned to the POOP SQUAD is a pretty normal for dads, I'm the chief administor/ CEO/ technician/ support staff/ emergency first responder of all things poop, and my nose has been trained to detect poop at any juncture. Luckily, Baby Yan'ss poops have all been healthy looking, there was one stretch of 3 days she wasn't pooping much (less than once every 24 hours) that spooked us, but after that it's been all systems go and back to the normal routine of drinking formula, pooping it out, refilling with formula, pooping it out. The poop has.......begun to smell pretty bad. It has an earthy feel to it like ti came from the soil, something from the nutrients that were put in both breastmilk (naturally by MJ eating different foods) and artificially by the infant formula makers......and it's not something I would want to smell 24/7 hours a day, which is why I try to change out of the old diaper and close it up as soon as possible to insert into the odor-cancelling steel lockbin of a the diaper disposal box. Still, in those few seconds when opening up the diaper and enjoying the nice surprise (it really is like Christmas morning opening up presents) of whether it's a little poop, big poop, muddy poop, old solidifed poop, really smelly poop that seeps through the diaper, they're all possible scenarios before opening up the diaper. Sometimes there's no poop! Yay! But a whole lot of pee weighing down the poop that weighs the whole contraption down anyway. Definitely being on the poop squad is one of those adjustments that hits you viscerally as a new parent, both the frequency of exposing yourself to the toxicity of poop and the immense amount of poop you have to deal with on a daily basis. And that's just the healthy poop, if all things go well. One thing I have noticed while looking around for problems (like a hammer looking for a nail) is the back of Baby Yan's head having stork bites, or little red marks that look like small blotches, why is why they're called stork bites because it looks like a stork bit in a little bit. Apparently they're normal and aren't indicative of any issues, rather more like birth marks caused by dilated blood vessels. When I first saw them I was a little alarmed, but I guess it's a common feeling I will get in the next few years seeing new things on baby that I have no knowledge about. Baby doesn't react to them, they don't seem to be causing any pain, so it's no more cause for alarm. One potentially alarming thing is how weak I am compared to baby's will and iron hand strength, trying to bat my hand away during feeding time or when I try to move her hand to get the bottle into her mouth. She's STRONG, which the nurses indicated on Day 2 or 3 when they measured the oxygenization in her limbs and assessed it as 100% percentile (even though she was born 6+ pounds, definitely not 100 percentile. She seems to have strong determination to get what she wants, which may be a good personality factor to have in the future but a detriment right now when she wants to be fed BADLY.....like she acts like the end of the world is happening and the crying is VIOLENT (she picked up my genes of having a loud voice, I guess) but then the instant she gets food, everything is peaceful again like a sudden thunderstorm passing through. Maybe a difficult combo in the future of being a Sagittarius baby (curious, independent, full of curiosity, and discovering new things) and this whole "needs to get what she wants" personality. oop, it's probably time for the Daddy poop squad team of one to get back on duty again!

Pacifiers (安抚奶嘴, おしゃぶり, 고무 젖꼭지

I guess I need to relisten to that song by Rema and his buddy Selena Gomez that was a hit in 2023 (maybe even an earworm).... I've been fretting about Baby Girl Yan's sleeping patterns, where she doesn't sleep for more than 10-20 minutes during the day. It's a common theme of parents to compare their children to other children, but sleep is so important for the baby and parents to take a nap, so I'd like baby to sleep for 2-2.5 hour increments, if possible. Maybe I'm stressing out a little to much, though, because a.) she's only 3 weeks old and b.) There are plenty of things where Baby Yan is a DREAM baby. She doesn't get fussy unless she's hungry, she is smart enough to latch herself onto her mom's breast, she has no problem pooping, she checks all of the boxes physically. The sleeping is one of the only issues that I'm worried about. Which is why we introduced pacifiers! I didn't know much about pacifiers except seeing it on TV, especially baby Maggie Simpson using it in the Simpson. I don't remember ever having one, and I don't remember my sister using one neither......I didn't even know what they're for! Apparently the function is right there in the name, it pacifies the baby. The first time Baby Yan tried it she spit it out, but today while getting a little fussy she tried it.......and it worked! I think she's still trying to figure out why there's no milk coming out of the nipple yet and still eagerly trying hard at it in case something did come out of it, but it does seem to work the way it's supposed to: calm the baby down so she isn't shaking and fretting for food or some other anxiety. It does actually make her "calm down." Really hoping this is part of the solution to the issue I've had the first three weeks of parenting: always having to hold the baby (we call her the Velcro Baby because she's stuck to us all the time) and comfort her because she doesn't stay still in the bassinet, mostly because she's not calm; always struggling and stretching and doing the Number 1 thing that babies are supposed to do: Go to sleep. Only when she starts going to sleep for extended periods at night will we be able to get back to somewhat of a routine schedule (although we won't ever be able to go back to our pre-baby routine ever of just being free and having beaucoup time for ourselves) Maybe I need an adult pacifier, or I'm making up for never having a pacifier as a baby by having bad habits as a child: still biting my nails occasionally to calm myself down, shaking my legs (MJ's mom has physically touched my leg for me to stop doing this), tapping my fingers, etc. I'm a pretty high-strung persno I've found, and I like to take care of problems as they occur and deal with them as soon as possbile so I can move on to something else, getting anxious when something is a persistent issue, which is why childbirth has made me even more tense; every time baby cries my blood pressure goes up, although apparently not to an excessively high level to prevent me from donating blood. It's possible baby is sensing my impatience and anxiety in the way I'm holding her and it's transferring on to her? I hope not, although my genes have gone to her already and my blood type as well; we might have the same temperament. I already see a lot of myself in her. I need to listen to that Rema song again.

Death by Lightning

First post of 2026! This promises to be the best year ever in the life of Robert Yan.....if 2025 was a preparation year for the birth of Baby Girl Yan and greater things to come, then 2026 is going to be the fulfillment of those preparations, a teaser preview of fatherhood late in 2025 will lead to a full year of newborn life with baby! So many firsts, so many milestones, so many diapers, so many sleepless nights, so much crying, so much happiness... all mushed into one. Baby Girl Yan has had suprisingly few unexpected surprises and worrisome concerns in her short life, making the lives of MJ and I so much easier (for now) as we just need to feed her, change her diaper, and put her to sleep, and a few other things like trim her fingernails so she doesn't scratch herself, sign her up for health insurance, get her birth certificate, social security card.... but all expected challenges and it hasn't been like climbing Mount Everest or anything. I did worry a bit, and still do now, about getting a will and life insurance for MJ and I.......what would happen in the unlikely event of our untimely demise. What would go to Mina, hopefully nothing going to greedy estate lawyers and estate handlers in the VERY unlikely chance that I pass away. (And really, philosophically, if I do end up dying, will I really care about things that happen in this world anymore, including my daughter? Some say yes of course the baby will still be here and will have to bear the consequences, and for a low low x amount of dollars, you can have piece of mind that she'll be left with something! For attitudes on life insurance and wills I present a direct quote by former President of the United States James Garfield and played by Michael Shannon in the recent mini-series on Netflix, "Death by Lightning," assassination, like death from lightning, is hard to guard against and not worth worrying about. I generally agree with our 20th president's philosophy, but then again he was a known figure, maybe the most known figure in the U.S. at the time, making his life simply much more risky than a normal person's life (unfortunately true today, prominent political figures are much more likely to die unexpectedly than silly old me sitting at home). Then again, the fact that Garfield DID actually die by assassination, a sort of death by lightning, might cut against my thought of not worrying about death and insurance, maybe like Garfield I SHOULD worry about it "just in case?" It's a tough thing to think about, of course, death. I've always thought I would never die and have survived 38.5 years without even coming close to death. (Or have I?) Maybe any number of planes I have ridden in was on the verge of total collapse and I just happened to avoid it during that flight. Maybe someone was plotting to kill me at some point over a perceived slight in dodgeball. Maybe I ate really unhealthily one night or had so much to drink (I can think of a couple nights in Mexico) that something in my body could have collapsed if just a little more. But of course the most likely cause of death of any of those, maybe I could have ended up in a fatal car accident any of the thousands of times I've driven a car, I just didn't know the other driver was drinking while driving or just barely passed by me without swerving into me. It's definitely possible that I've just barely escaped death. Out of the grand universe of people, most people end up surviving their 30's and their 40's no problem without unexpectedly dying (cancer and chronic diseases would be things that you could foresee your own death and create a will when needed). So maybe it's okay NOT to have a will? Is the idea of a will and life insurance (I think definitely so in the latter case, because I can have other income to replace life insurnace) to scare nromal people and get people to pay into a system and capitalize off of insecurities, fear, and worries? (So many things I read before becoming a parent now seem manageable and not that big of a deal....Reddit can definitely amplify one's concerns). I guess if I'm wrong and I do die, I'll never find out. And if I do survive till my late years of life I'll think it was a pyramid scheme all along, so I'll never have the idea that it makes sense to do it. Death by lightning (btw, something I get scared about when I'm out running and there's lightning in the distance, I even fruitlessly run in zig zag patterns to somehow "avoid" the lightning, unscientifically).