matching tracksuits

Newborns are completely covered for most of their first weeks, an L has been no exception. First, she was swaddled with a cap. Then we began dressing her in sleepers, but the cap remained, as did the mittens slipped over her dangerously sharp fingernails.

I got used to seeing only a round bit of olive skin, eyes closed, nostrils flaring, and the occasional gummy grimace as the crying begins. L was born with a head full of hair, but it was so rarely visible during her first couple of weeks that she might as well have been bald. But then the cap came off and we all got used to her beautiful dark hair, and how much it added to her features: her dark eyes seemed darker; her olive skin seemed more Mediterranean; her faint eyebrows were more visible. She looked less like the cheese-covered bundle of pink, wrinkled skin she'd been only weeks earlier and more like a little girl. It became possible to imagine what she might look like in a year, two years, five years.

Now, the mittens have finally come off, and the effects are equally dramatic. The eyes, some say, are a window to one's inner thoughts. The fingers, it turns out, can do the same. What's she touching? How's she wiggling her fingers? How much control does she have over them? Mittened hands make mysteries of such questions.

Bare hands also highlight fragility. Fingers little larger than a matchstick could probably break with just as much ease.

It's also now easier to see what she's wrapping K and me around...

Call me bizarre, but I like changing L's diaper. True, the contents don't stink yet, so there's no gag reflex to deal with. But I've a feeling that even when the Poopsmith does start incorporating fragrance into her artistic endeavors, I won't mind it. I've come to realize that changing L's diaper is the most loving, intimate thing I can do for her now.

I can't feed her -- that's all K's responsibility at this point -- but I can clean up the mess.

Changing a diaper helps a father realize, I think, how completely dependent an infant is on on him and his, even for what in later life will be one of the most private of acts. Yes, that's obvious, but hearing it and experiencing it are not the same.

For me, as I suppose for most men with the birth of their first child, changing a diaper was an entirely new activity, something requiring a bit of instruction, some patience, some practice, and a sense of humor when things go wrong.

Patience is key, for L poops in shifts. Hence, the first time I changed her, an almost scripted adventure: I get the new diaper on

Patience is key, for L poops in shifts. Hence, the first time I changed her, an almost scripted adventure: I get the new diaper on her only to hear the tell tale noises that say, "Time for a change." I get that diaper on and it happens again. Lesson learned: give the little girl time to get it all out.

Patience is not enough, though. Practice combines with patience to create that mystery known as the quick diaper change, for it's possible -- in a rush, mind you -- to put the diaper on wrong side out. This is not very effective, but fortunately the mistake makes itself readily manifest when you try to close up the diaper.

The need for a sense of humor is the most obvious -- fountains of pee, squirts of poop, leaking diapers, heels planted firmly in dirty diapers all have their role in a diaper change.

Yet, changing a diaper is not for everyone, especially grandparents. When I asked my mother if she wanted to change L this weekend, she simply said, "No." The great advantage of being a grandparent, I suppose: all the joy w

Burping L -- a complicated process involving gymnastics, moan interpretation, patience, a sharp ear for slight gurgling, and a love of spit-up milk.

L has problems burping, which we've found we can solve by putting her horizontally for a few moments until all things gastrointestinal get good and worked up and enough pressure builds. By then, it's no longer a bit of spit-up milk -- it's a fountain. Pick her up quickly, pat that back, and feel the warm ooze of undigested milk covering anything not covered with a burping cloth. (I think the milk gains sentience in the belly and then actively seeks any portion of the body not covered with the proper burping accessory.) Thump, thump, thump on the diaper (we're using cloth diapers -- they go halfway up her back at this point!) and then hold her still for a few minutes. Once she's calm, repeat the process.

If we just hold her vertically and pat her belly, she'll burp a time or two, fall asleep, and then squirm madly a few minutes later as the pressure builds up. Then L wakes with a start, crying, wiggling, and obviously in pain. And sometimes, to our terror, choking. So it's best to do what works, even if the whole feeding process takes up to an hour and a half.

Yet these are the fun things about being a parent -- finding out the little quirks of your child, the little combinations of this and that in order to calm, soothe, burp, bathe, etc. effectively and quickly. Such things also speak to the coming quirks and wonders we'll be discovering about her as she begins to smile, to speak, to walk, to run.

She also has problems sending it out other end, but perhaps another time...