Spice Girl to Daddy: This food is bland!

Posted on June 1, 2010 by MThomas

Lately, my daughter has begun to reject food. At first my wife and I thought she might be coming down with something — especially after our hospital episode, we have been carefully monitoring our daughter’s sleeping and eating habits for any signs of recurring sickness.

The fate of bland baby food.

But she hasn’t shown any signs of vomiting, skin rashes, breathing difficulties…even when she had a fever a couple days ago, it seemed to be a reaction to having caught some sort of mild cold virus from a playmate at a weekend “parent-child” get together. She recovered from the fever within about a day, and has been happily gurgling along “Old MacDonald Had A Farm” while banging on random hand-made toys.

No, it wasn’t sickness. Then, what was it? Why was she suddenly (it seemed) resisting eating? Continue reading →

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The Tanakas, “tenkin,” and “o-mutsu-koukan”

Posted on May 27, 2010 by MThomas

A few weeks ago (before all the hospital melodrama), I took my daughter to a nearby supermarket…which had a “baby care room” on the second floor, next to the roof parking lot. We had been invited by a Japanese couple that my wife met last year at a local city-organized “mother-child consultation” session.

The couple (whom I’ll call “Tanaka-san” since it’s a popular name…) and I chatted while our kids played with various toys. Kids at age 1 aren’t really capable of playing together, but it was fun anyway.

Talk turned to my child care leave. It turned out that Mr. Tanaka had taken a few days off during April to stay home and help his wife with household chores. Continue reading →

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Sad Dad, Bad Had

Posted on May 19, 2010 by MThomas

There’s a page in the classic Seuss book Hop on Pop that reads:

Sad

Dad

Bad

Had

Dad is sad.

Very, very sad,

He had a bad day.

What a day Dad had.

Even Dads get the “baby blues.” But now a new “meta-analysis” study in the U.S. has claimed to find evidence for “postpartum depression” in one out of ten new fathers, despite their not experiencing all the hormones associated physically with the birth process. Continue reading →

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