50 for 50: 2003

YEAR: 2003

AGE: Turned 33 on Nov. 6

LOCATION: Cottonwood Heights, Pinnacle Highland Apartments; Salt Lake City/Sugar House, Ramona Avenue

CUBS' RECORD: 88-74

SONGS I LIKED: "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes; "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne; "Honestly" by Zwan; "Sunday Morning" by Maroon 5

MOVIES I SAW: "The Runaway Jury"; "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"

TV SHOWS I WATCHED: "The Osbournes"; "CSI"; "Without a Trace"; "American Idol"; "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"

CONCERTS I EXPERIENCED: Hall and Oates; Styx

VIDEO GAME I PLAYED: Final Fantasy Tactics

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how I couldn't imagine myself driving -- the immense responsibility and scariness of it all -- but of course would learn and was looking forward to it, no much how it scared me.

Multiply that by 10, and you have where I was at in becoming a dad. I was never worried about being a bad father or that I wouldn't move heaven and earth for my children. I was more concerned with how I'd handle the day-to-day stuff, like diapers and feeding. I also worried that I might inadvertently screw the kid up for life.

In 2003, there was no turning back: Lori and I were expecting our first child. At 4:40 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 9, Michael came into the world. 

He came home from the hospital on Thursday. On Friday, we had to bring him back.

We actually took him to the children's hospital. He was running a bit of a fever, and with newborns, any fever means a trip to the emergency room. It was frightening, to say the least. At the ER, he was given a spinal tap and couple other procedures, then admitted for observation and to be sure whatever caused the fever wasn't something more serious.

The nurses at Primary Children's were great. The residents sucked donkey balls. The bedside manner was terrible, they seemed put off that Lori was crying that her new baby was in the hospital, and they wanted to keep us there for four days because they wanted to give Michael a CT scan ... but no one could do that until Monday. A nurse pulled some strings and got us in for the scan Friday night, and Michael was such a trooper -- he didn't cry, and at one point, I swear he was flirting with the technician.

We ended up going home Sunday morning. Our new pediatrician, who we met a few weeks earlier and was immediately impressed with, was doing rounds as an attending, and he let the resident have it that they wanted to keep us in the hospital for so long. "Why am I looking at a healthy baby's CT scan?" he said he asked. He was an outstanding doctor for both our kids (as is our current pediatrician).

Still, the short hospital stay was inevitable -- two nights. Lori was still exhausted from the delivery, and we split staying up during the first night (the room only had one small pullout bed). Michael was in a hospital crib and had a few wires hooked up to him, monitoring his vital signs. I watched videos (the room had a VCR, and the hospital then had a huge library of video tapes -- I remember watching "Return of the Jedi") and played my Game Boy Advance and tried not to dwell on the fact my three-day old son was in the hospital.

While Lori was sleeping, Michael needed to be changed. A few days in, I still hadn't changed a diaper yet -- I didn't think the first one was going to be in this setting. I also had to navigate everything he was hooked up to. I had no idea how I was going to manage this. The nurse came in, and I'm sure I could have asked her to do it, but she merely supervised.

I figured it out.

After that, I knew I could handle anything that came my way -- whether it was as routine as giving him a bottle to as complex as helping him with homework -- with this wondrous child, as well as the one after that. OK, I was hoping for a boy on the second one because I already knew how to operate one. 

In retrospect, that early scare prepared me for every subsequent bump, bruise, concussion, illness, wheeze, and infection with both boys. Michael was thrown into a metal support beam a few weeks ago during a basketball game. His head was bleeding, and we feared another concussion (luckily, he was fine). I was horrified, yelled at the kid who threw him (who felt bad - it was a bit reckless but not malicious), and rushed Michael to the hospital, where he got two staples in his head. But I never freaked out. 

I was recently listening to a podcast celebrating the movie version of "The Martian" and was reminded of a quote from the movie:

"You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem ... and you solve the next one ... and then the next. And If you solve enough problems, you get to come home."

That's all parenting is. You solve one problem, then the next, then the next, and everything in between is just incredible.

In a hospital on a cold December day, I solved a first problem as a dad. Soon thereafter, we got to go home.