I can hardly believe that we’ve hit his first birthday already. Oddly, at the same time, it feels like a century ago I was in that hospital room marveling at his wrinkly hands and unpracticed cries. Most amazingly of all, we’ve made it through 365 days of parenting and still have a healthy little boy to show for it.

The last year has done more to grow me up than any of the 32 years before it. To say having a child is life changing is as much an understatement as it is a cliche, but it’s an absolute truism. There just really is nothing that compares to it, and no matter what else I’ve left to accomplish with my life, that day a year ago was most definitely the high-water mark.

These 12 months haven’t been without their ups and downs though — from a frantic trip to the hospital to diagnose a mild case of mosquitobiteosis; to a long stretch of time where my boy was producing movements at the rate of a stalled composer (about one a week); and, of course, the ever-gnawing fear that you’re doing it all wrong and he’s going to end up a delinquent by age 2.

I’m sure the next year (and every year hence) will bring with it a cornucopia of new things that will awe and confound me, but I thought I would take this milestone moment to share some of the things that being “on the job” for a year has taught me.

The birth really is just the beginning

Before my baby was born, the absolute most important moment that I could ever possibly imagine was the day he was to be born. After, however, every day was that much more amazing than the one prior.

I had put a lot of pressure on myself (and in hindsight, Maggie as well) trying to assure the apex of the pregnancy was this “perfect event”. We had a birth plan, had confirmed with the hospital that I could be present for the delivery (not all that common in Chinese hospitals), had read books and generally just stressed about the whole thing far too much. Before the little guy arrived I couldn’t imaging anything more important than the moment of his birth, but the minute after he arrived, everything was more important. I just couldn’t conceive of those things prior, and so I guess like a lot of dads-to-be, focused on that one thing.

Of course it’s important, and a day that will never be forgotten (if not for the cake-eating, toy-buying, kids screaming yearly reminder for the next 2 decades). But if you’re a soon-to-be-father that is overly stressed about the birth being the biggest, most-perfect event ever; my advice is to take a step back and realize that it really is just the beginning.

When it comes to kids, everyone is an expert

“You should eat ______,” “You shouldn’t eat _______,” “You need to establish boundaries right away,” “You should let things flow naturally,” “You should breast feed right away,” “You might not have enough milk to breastfeed and should use formula or you may starve your child,” “You should pump so dad can feed too,” “You should teach the baby to sleep alone and foster independence,” “You should co-sleep with your baby to establish trust and a bond,” “You should start feeding your baby solids by 4 months,” “You shouldn’t feed your baby solids until after 6 months,” “You should have pets,” “You should get rid of pets,” “You should get lots of bed rest,” “You should get more exercise,” “You should stay indoors for ____ amount of time,” “You should get out and get fresh air right away,” “You should use these types of toys/clothes/shoes,” “You shouldn’t use these types of toys/clothes/shoes,”

Whether it’s well-meaning doctors and nurses, friends and relatives, or the aisles and aisles of parenting books; everyone, and I mean everyone, has an opinion that they’re eager to give about being a good parent. I think the reason for this is because unlike if I were to, say, want to design a Web site, most people have some amount of experience with kids — if even just peripherally — and a good-hearted desire to share that knowledge. Plus, most can’t help but want to be a part of this incredible life-affirming moment.

For a new parent this deluge of good-intentioned advice can be overwhelming. What I’ve realized after a year of swimming through this glut of counsel is that none of it really matters all that much. I believe the reason there are so many conflicting opinions about how to properly care for a baby is simply due to the fact that babies are pretty flexible little creatures. Unless you go out of your way to neglect them; they’re going to get bigger, stronger and smarter with a relatively minimal amount of complicated effort on our part.

What this means, at least to me, is we’re free to pursue the method of child rearing that suits us best. This leads me to my next point:

Ideas over ideologies

One of the things that has really annoyed me in my immersion into the parenting literature is that there seems to be a terrible problem of ideologies infesting what should otherwise just be ideas.

Ideas are just that, small granules of knowledge that can be woven together into a flexible fabric of intelligence and understanding. Ideologies, on the other hand, carry with them a near religious fervor of adherence and the shunning of anything that conflicts with the ideologies core principles.

No matter whether I agreed with the content of the various parenting books that passed my eyes (and ears) or not, virtually every single one of them promoted their ideas as a “system” that was both better than and contrary to all other “systems.” Breastfeeding moms tend to look down on formula-feeding moms, and likewise, formula-feeding moms don’t understand how breastfeeding moms can handle the inconvenience; cry-it-outters feel no-cry methods are too passive and are doing the baby a disservice, while no-cry practitioners feel you’re emotionally scaring your baby; and so on…

Unfortunately it’s a function of the way these types of books are written. After all, you sell more books if you enlist advocates for your “method” that will not only promote your book but also try to discredit the books of others.

My feeling is that my child is much better served if I stay flexible, unbiased and give myself that much more opportunity to cherry-pick the best ideas from all the ideologies. As examples:

1. For several months Casey slept in his crib, but when this became overly disruptive to Maggie and I getting enough sleep to function, he started co-sleeping with us and it has been great since. However, we recognize that he’ll need to migrate back to his own bed soon, and so will likely be attempting some sleep training that will undoubtedly result in a whole lot of tears before it’s all done.
2. Likewise, Maggie has always (and continues to) breastfed Casey. When we started solids we avoided rice powder mixes and pre-processed bottled food and instead made all our own baby food (it’s surprisingly easy to do). When we didn’t have time to make the food or if we were travelling, we simply used bottled food and rice powder. Now he eats mostly all solids (pretty much just whatever we’re eating, unless it’s a Vindaloo curry or something) but we still occasionally supplement the “饭” part of his meal with iron-enriched rice powder instead of plain white rice.

Basically we’ve taken ideas from two different “camps” and applied them to our situation, and I think Casey, Maggie and I are all the better for it. The only two things that I’m strict about maintaining are (1) that he receives proper nutrition, and (2) that he receive an endless supply of love and affection. I think everything else is mostly cosmetic.

Some parenting books I’ve enjoyed

I’ve depended heavily on the recommendations of others for what books were worth reading. To pass this information on, here are a few of the books I feel contain decent or helpful information. Read my point above about cherry-picking ideas though, as I don’t feel any one of these books offers a “complete” parenting solution, but rather only give access to ideas and practical examples that helped me learn about this complicated gig I’d signed on for.

Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: This book was recommended by my step-sister-in-law (and mother of twins!). I recently finished this book, and it offers up some good advice mostly related to effective discipline. It is a bit overrun with self-selling wording and definitely falls into the “ideology” category that I mentioned above. However, I think its principles of teaching children to understand consequence through action rather than words is worth navigating the books downsides for.

Geek Dad: I got this book as a gift from our friends Ric and Gin and it’s awesome. It’s a collection of (geeky) activities a parent (though, obviously, marketed towards fathers) can do with their child, based on the Wired blog of the same name. Casey’s still too young for me to put the book to use, but I can’t wait! Some examples: “Windup Toy Finger Painting,” “Pirate Cartography,” “Light-up Duct Tape Wallet,” and “Exploding Drink Practical Joke.”

Sleeping Through the Night: Another recommended by my step-sister-in-law, this book is a fantastic source of information on how babies sleep and how you can help get them doing it for longer stretches of time. As mentioned, my wife and I are currently co-sleeping with Casey. However, now that he’s starting to flail and turn in his sleep and ends up taking over about 50% of our bed, coupled with his new habit of waking up around 6am and chatting to himself for an hour or so, we’ll be turning to this book soon to help the transition to his own bed.

The Breastfeeding Answer Book: Put out by the La Leche League, this book is called the “Breast Feeding Bible” for a reason. Maggie relied on it more than me, but it gave her loads of insight and answers to virtually everything to do with breastfeeding. We were quite fortunate to have a local chapter of La Leche League in Suzhou, especially considering how much formula feeding is pushed on new mothers here (and how unsafe that can be in China).

The Baby Book: I’m not sure how this one ended up in our hands, but it’s a great (and massive) resource on raising a baby. Written by two of the Dr. Sears dynasty, everything is slanted towards “Attachment Parenting“, but again please refer to my note above about ideas over ideologies.

The Expectant Father: This book was a loaner from Ric (mentioned above) when Maggie was still preggers and it did a fantastic job of putting my mind at ease and preparing me for the insanity to come. It runs the gambit of information from being prepared for the dash to the hospital to handling the spectrum of emotions that you encounter as an expectant dad. The author, Armin A. Brott, has more books that tackle other periods of parenting and I’m hoping to get my hands on them eventually.

Brain Rules for Baby: I just started this book (the audio book actually, via Audible.com) and so far am really liking it. Essentially it talks about how our brains form and work and what as parents we can do to assure we foster our child’s mind. The author, John Medina, is a scientist and that comes through in the book in all the right ways. He doesn’t present vague theories or possibilities, he only presents things that are backed by tested scientific evidence. Despite being written by a scientist, the book is light-hearted and jovial and not at all weighed down by the somewhat heavy material being shared.

I’m sure there were other books along the way that I’m now forgetting, but those were the biggies that helped us along. Really though the best advice came from asking other parents lots and lots of questions, as well as a huge healthy dose of common sense.

Year Number Two, here we come

I really can’t wait for all the things to come over the next year — first solo steps, first real words, and just a bunch of other great stuff that we can expect in year two.

Something no one really told me, but I’d bet I’m not the only dad that felt this way, is that for the first few months or so Casey was a total bore! I love the little guy, truly more than I’ve ever loved anything, but he had the action and excitement of a spud on a hot day. He just basically laid around, barely interacted with the world and was generally just content to have us take care of everything. Of course I understood is was completely normal, but I was also a new dad — I had been anticipating this moment for a long long time and I was eager to get out and start playing catch or building Lego castles with the little guy.

After reminding myself of a need for patience and to soak in all these early moments as best I could, I started to see changes in Casey as he began to interact with the things around him. Now, at 1 year, he’s this charismatic and engaging little dude that’s just adorable to be around. He shoots a smile at you when you wink at him, he laughs at the ladies in the park and he squeals with joyful fear when you jump out and startle him in his walker. He’s a riot!

I know that this next year is likely to see just as many, if not more, stressful events as the year previous. However, the joy I get from being a dad seems almost exponential in its increment. So, Happy Birthday son. Oh, and May the 4th be with you!

At sunset four years ago today I was stumbling my way through bilingual vows on China’s most southern sands. I can hardly believe that four years has passed since then.

It has been wonderful being home for the holidays, and a visit that has been full of firsts. It was Maggie’s first time seeing British Columbia (as we flew into Vancouver rather than Toronto, simply for the experience and to visit family out west). It was also our first opportunity to meet my 20-month-old nephew who was born shortly after our last visit to Canada.

My nephew is not the only new addition to our clan since our last visit. My cousin and my step-brother have both had children since we were last here, and being home has given me a chance to sit down with all the somewhat-new parents and pick their brains on being first-time parents.

That experience alone has made this visit home invaluable. We have lists of recommended reading, bags of baby gear, advice layered upon advice and, perhaps most valuable, the opportunity to spend some up-close and personal time with babies and little kids — something that has given us both a much stronger sense that, despite the regular fears I imagine all new parents-to-be have, we are ready for this.

Hands down the best part of being home though came in the form of a short trip to a small office in Oakville on December 23, 2009. For Christmas my sister and my mom decided to take Maggie and I to 3D Baby Vision, a fetal imaging clinic that specializes in keepsake 3d ultrasounds.

We got the works; a 30-40 minute 3D ultrasound session, a DVD recording of the session, a CD full of images of our unborn baby, and — most importantly — gender assessment.

Due to Chinese families (particularly in rural areas) favouring boys, and because of the country’s One Child Policy; Chinese doctors and ultrasound techs are legal restricted from revealing the sex of a child so as to prevent parents from aborting the baby if it is a girl.

While there are always ways around this, having the assessment done while we are here in Canada was a simple solution, and one we were quite eager to take part in.

It’s a boy!

Or rather it will be… or should be. Due to the position of the baby, the tech could only give us 90% certainty, but said that in the 5 years of the business, she had never received a call saying she had gotten it wrong.

I was asked a lot prior to knowing the sex what I hoped he would be, and I always said I was completely impartial. More than one person told me I was lying and deep down I had a preference. I really didn’t, and still don’t. I see the benefits and challenges of either — and at the end of the day I’m just thrilled to be a dad.

That said, now that we know I can focus on what having a boy means — basically, a little me. I’m in a lot of trouble. Of course I’m kidding. I’m excited to take part in all the “father-son” things that I took part in with my dad. Playing catch, going to games, etc.

I’m also pretty keen on the fact that as the only male child in my family, having a boy means that my family name with carry on (provided he doesn’t go on to hyphenate it — but who does that, really?).

Anyway, without further adieu, here are some photos:

As mentioned above, we were also provided with a DVD of the session. It really was a nice touch, but was a bit rough. It was littered with blank screens when the tech switched between 3D and 2D ultrasounds, and also displayed a few error messages that popped up on the system. Additionally, it was overlayed with a rather cheesy soundtrack that had to go.

So, a bit of iMovie magic, and I whipped together the following (Slow? Also on Vimeo):
[flashvideo file=wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Baby%203D%20Ultrasound%20-%20Medium.mp4 /]

Sadly, the holiday cheer and baby excitement has been overshadowed a bit the last few days. My paternal grandmother died just after Christmas, and we’ll be attending her funeral tomorrow.

The grief of losing a family member is terrible. It was barely more than a year ago that my maternal grandmother died. The most painful part when she died was being so far away from everyone. In that way, I am glad we happened to be here now.

I have a wide mix of emotions over her death, and don’t have the experience with death to properly put it all to words. However, the one feeling I am confident in is that to me her death was anything but a tragedy. I cannot begin to imagine a way in which it is a tragedy for someone to live 93 years; seeing, experiencing, creating, loving and giving all that she did.

I will miss her more than I can even guess at now; I can’t even fully comprehend that she is gone. But I know that I will always remember her as the amazing person she was and the infinite number of ways her life positively influenced my own.

It is a, ultimately life-affirming, conflict of emotions feeling the kick of my unborn son one day, and losing someone I love dearly the next. Truly, c’est la vie.

And with that in mind, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy New Year. May we all discover things in 2010 which make us more fully appreciate our lives and the way we live them. My best to all of you.

I leave in a couple hours to grab the shuttle from Suzhou to the Shanghai Pudong airport where I’ll collect what is sure to be a slightly achy and jet lagged version of my friend. I’m super excited. Of course because it’s been a year and a half since I’ve seen my friend, but I think the excitement has much more to do with the anticipation of sharing a part of my life that despite being friends for nearly 20 years, he’s virtually unaware of.

Much like when I brought Maggie home to Canada the Christmas after we got married, it was great for her to meet the parts of my family she hadn’t met, and it was good to visit home — but the most interesting part was sharing with her a whole side of my life that she had never experienced. She only knew “Ryan in China”, and had never met “Ryan in Canada” – his friends, his hometown, his memories, etc.

Cory and I up at his cottage in 2004, the summer before I left for China. The fish were small, but the beer helped.

Likewise, Cory and I grew up together. We weathered those awkward and painful high school years together. We witnessed each others first loves, first loves lost (still trying to remember where we left her), first jobs, first time driving, first time drinking, first time leaving home, etc. As a guy with two (wonderful) sisters, he is the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever known.

But since moving to China in 2005 our paths have run further and further apart. While four and a half years is a relatively short period of time, it’s caused me to miss out on a lot of things back home, and caused the people I care about back home to miss out on a lot of things in my life. As much as I do my best to stay in touch and keep up with what is going on, the pictures people paint for me become less and less vivid until they resemble little more than bullet points in an e-mail, and not the life-affecting changes that they actually are.

As much as I “know” life is moving on steadily without me back home, it isn’t “real” to me in a physical sense. And I imagine it is much the same for my friends and family back home with my life here. They all know I live in China, and presumably have some sort of life here; but I am guessing it doesn’t really exist for most of them because they’ve not seen it and been apart of that story themselves.

That’s really what it comes down to, and why this birthday is more exciting than any I’ve had recently — I’m extremely excited to have such an integral character in my story back in the plot — if even just for a couple weeks.

Last Monday Carol left for Prague for the New Year celebration. I too was supposed to depart, but because I had stayed up the entire night before scouring the Internet for flight deals to Bangkok and various other travel tips I stayed behind an extra day. Sooo… Tuesday morning I woke up bright and early and headed down to the store to grab the rest of the money I owed Carol (she spotted me to buy my flights) and to get some batteries. Getting back to the house I entered the back gate like I’d done a bunch of times before – but this time something was different… something was VERY different. The key didn’t work! Alright, don’t panic. There’s a reasonable explanation. There MUST be a reasonable explanation. Turns out a key was inserted in the inside lock, which (for some UBERSECURITY reason that is beyond me) negates the openability from the outside (even with a lock). Shit, shit, shit. Carol’s in Prague, ALL my stuff is locked in the house (including phone numbers, etc.) and I don’t know ANYONE in the neighbourhood.

After retrying the lock about 10 times, then checking all the windows, then retrying the lock again, I approached a woman across the street, who after her suggestion of trying a knitting needle (I didn’t even know where to begin) she enlisted the help of her neighbour, Steve. We attempted a non-violent resolution, but in the end we had to bring the hammer down. Yep. That’s how I repaid the kindness Carol extended to me. I broke her front door window to get in. And that was the beginning to what turned out to be the worst day of my trip.

After I got into the house, I left Steve to sort out the piece of wood we now needed to fill the hole in the door and I made the obligatory phone call to Carol. I only got her voicemail, but it was still a tough conversation to have. I had missed the first bus to Belfast, but could still catch the 11:10 bus and get there in time to get the bus down to Dublin. Not wanting to be locked out again in case the bus had already come (or my schedule was wrong), I waited at Carol’s front door until I saw it coming over the hill. The bus stop was right across the street so I slammed the door and hustled across the road. About 10 feet away from the stop (constantly signalling the bus that I wanted a ride), I watched the driver wave as he passed me by. Needless to say, I had some choice words for him, even if the empty street was the only thing to hear them.

Now locked out again, I headed down to the bus depot in the centre of Comber where I discovered the next bus wasn’t until 1:30. So, two hours in the cold and I was finally on my way to Dublin. I got to Dublin, and being three hours late, I was unsurprised when Gerard wasn’t home to greet me. So, I got comfortable in their apartment hallway and waited. And waited. About an hour and a very numb ass later, I decided I’d attempt to call Julie’s mobile (something I’d not had much luck with to date) and grab some food. About 1/2 hour later I was back in the hallway (VERY secure building) eating a stale bagette stuffed with a whole packet of dry chicken/ham loaf. Mmmmm. Yeah, my spirits were high. Thankfully Carol’s friend had given me a small bottle of Bushmills Irish Whiskey, which quickly found it’s way into my Pepsi Max. Soooo… about five seconds after explaining the whole ordeal to my video camera (just to kill the time), they came home – with beer.

Alright, flashforward to the following night – New Year’s Eve!!! We ended up back at Roddy Bolands, the same pub we spent some amount of time at on my previous jaunt to Dublin. The night was a blast! It was full of singing, dancing and of course Guinness. We got there at about 8:00 and met up with Gerard’s friends Rico and Tom as well as Julie’s friend Leona (and her friend Michael). We all just sorta hung by the bar. Midnight came, balloons fell, kisses were given, fun was had. We met these two girls, whose names I have NO idea about… I also remember the one girl saying I could have some of her Champagne (like proper Champagne), I just can’t for the life of me remember what I had to do to get it. Regardless, I got the Champagne. I also got a dance or two.

We stumbled out of the bar at about 2 and after trying to get a cab, we ended up walking home. Well Gerard and I did. Julie chose poorly when picking her footwear for the night, and ended up crashing at Gerard’s parents’ house. Gerard and I walked the rest of the way home eating a donar-kebab and discussing the finer points of inner-city security – nothing finer for 4:30 a.m. convo.

Thursday (New Year’s Day) we went to Gerard’s parents. They kindly invited me to come for New Year’s dinner, and it was awesome. They offered me wine and I objected, so imagine my surprise when, two/three hours later, there was an empty bottle of wine in front of me and Gerard and I were working on our second bottle of Irish whiskey. Oh the meal was great too. Oh the family was great too!

A common sight of the Dublin skyline.

Friday I headed to Galway. Julie gave me two free passes for stay in an Irish hostel, and my Eurail pass came into effect, so the trip didn’t cost me anything. The train trip to Galway was really cool, not for scenery, but for the company. I spent the ride chatting to this girl named Becka (I think, damn my memory) from Northern England who was going to school in Brighton (just south of London) for Pharmacology. She was really great and really interesting. She spent time in Africa and so had some interesting things to say. I on the other hand am about ready to shoot myself if I have to explain my situation one more time. I am so tired of hearing about myself. See… the people around me change so I hear lots of great stories from them, but I keep hearing the same story from myself. Maybe I’ll start making things up.

Upon arriving in Galway I checked into the hostel and then just wandered around Galway. It was grey and I was tired, so I just called it a day and spent the rest of Friday in the common/TV room. I met a couple people, but mostly just kept to myself. I returned to my room at about midnight and out of the four beds in the room mine was still the only one looking to get use. As I finished the thought three Spaniards walked in. They were cool, though I only chatted with them while getting sorted for bed.

Saturday morning I hit a low point sitting in the dinning area of the hostel. I was beginning to feel the pangs that come with travelling alone – and I was starting to doubt my ability to meet people. The rest of the day was spent meeting people. Yay me. I’ll not go into all the details of who I met, but for a couple from Winnipeg named Renee and Dave. They had just completed travelling around Europe and shared TONNES of great information on places to stay and things to see. Also, in a weird coincidence, I had just finished explaining to someone how much I missed my guitar when I found a guy in the stairwell playing, so we traded it back and forth for about an hour – it was great fun, but now I miss it more than ever.

Saturday night I headed out with Renee and Dave, along with a girl named Leisel, to a bar called Richardsons that had an NFL game on that Dave wanted to see. I’ve been writing this entry for EVER and I want to go get a movie, so I’m going to sum this up. Had fun Saturday night, returned to Dublin on Sunday putting to use the best thing Renee gave me (an eraseable pen – out of fear of legal action, I’ll not say why it’s the best thing). I spent today (Monday) walking around Dublin in search of the Thai Consulate, only to discover that it would take 5 days to get my visa (I’ll get it in London or Paris or London). I decided to splurge and buy a travel guide called Europe By Rail. It’s sorta like a Lonely Planet guide, but designed specifically for users of Eurail passes. It was about 19 euro, but I think it was worth it. Now I think Julie, Gerard and I are going to go rent a movie and then I’ll get some rest. I have a long day of travel ahead of me tomorrow (today by the time this is posted), as I’m off to Paris. I can’t beleive I’m going to be in Paris tomorrow night. Well good night folks, and Vanessa, thanks again for the phrase book, it’s going to come in mighty handy!!!