Sean would have none of it. Josephine would!

Apparently many disappointments come with fatherhood. Just ask Sean.

You'll remember that the first kick he felt from the womb was quite the let-down for him. We should have known then that for someone with ZERO baby experience, Sean tends to have a lot of notions about how things should be.

For instance, a newborn should get excited and giddy when he wants to run, play, and jump in her face hollering BOO once she's had a whopping three days of oxygen. Why on earth would she look so frightened??? If he's making funny noises, she should be laughing! Too bad that after nearly five months of this, she's only SOMETIMES on board, which frequently leaves him a tad disappointed. Not that he's given up; he thinks she just needs practice growing a sense of humor.

He also seems hurt that she hides her face from his prickly, unshaven kisses. She has learned: if Dad gets too close, quickly turn away and let him kiss the back of your head. I try to tell him-- she's a smart kid. She knows it hurts. I finally have someone else on my Please Shave team. Yessss!

Then there was the time she spat up on his face (a great deal of milk, really, right on his cheek, first thing in the morning). That was quite the blow the the fatherhood ego which supposes, "Surely MY daughter would never do anything as disgusting as other babies!" That was rough for him. He seemed to take it personally and kind of avoided her the rest of the morning. I made her apologize.

All of these, however, pale in comparison to his heartbreak over her bald spots and hair loss. You would not believe how frequently this comes up in conversation. He compares her hair to other babies'. He encourages her to grow more. He compliments her anytime he imagines it might have grown another millimeter. I frequently catch him saying things like "Yes, you ARE so cute... even though you're bald-- I DO love you, yes I do... it doesn't matter that you don't have hair..."

And perhaps the only thing Sean could be more sensitive to than the standard, male hair-loss-phobia is FOOD. Yes, food. He got really excited when I said we should make homemade Pedialyte for her, since between being outdoors in the extreme heat and what seemed like it might be diarrhea, I decided it wouldn't hurt to add a little to her diet for a day or two. Then I gave him the recipe: 4 cups water, half a teaspoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar. He was devastated. The first thing he was making for his daughter was essentially saltwater???? I found out later that he cut down the sugar because he thought it was excessive, he only surpassed adding some homemade watermelon juice because he'd used honey to sweeten the juice, and the one "redeeming" part of the mixture was that he used Fleur de Sel rather than ordinary salt.

Up that a notch, and you have yesterday's event. Josephine's first solid food. I'd been telling him the pediatrician recommended we give a tiny bit of rice cereal (like a teaspoon) to start her in on the solids. So we strategically timed The Big Event around Sean's calls for work, during the east coast lunch hour-- he broke out the video camera, he started giving Josephine pep talks-- Rah, rah, REAL food! And then he saw the rice cereal. Adamant protesting ensued. This was NOT real food, this was HARDLY solid, he was expecting Rice Krispies, dang it! I can't even describe how crushed and disappointed he was at the mash I was mixing.

Despite her dad's disbelief and horror at what constituted her first "solid" food, Josephine was not put off for a second, as you can see below. Sean claims that's only because she doesn't know any better. He duly took some footage, but wasn't exactly happy about any of it.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't end by saying that a great deal of AWESOMENESS also comes with fatherhood. Just ask Sean.

(But a post detailing all the cutesy things he does [and would never admit to doing] would have fallen somewhere along the spectrum of cheesy to sickening, don't you agree? This was much more fun. :-) )