Ode to a New Dad.

I forgot to write a birthday post to Brandon. Whoops. So this does double duty!

One of my favorite memories of the whole 2 months of Brandon being a dad is probably the first one I have. Cora was all of 3 minutes old and being weighed on the table. It was cold and bright for her, and she was crying. I was being, ahem, attended to, so I wasn't able to go over and comfort her. Brandon walked over, blocked the light from her eyes, and said, "Hi Cora." And what do you know, she stopped crying, opened her eyes, and looked right at him. It was a very sweet moment. And she has had him wrapped around her finger ever since.

Brandon has been hands on since that first moment. I knew he would be a good dad, but I wondered how long it would take him to embrace the role. NOT LONG AT ALL. He loves it. That first night we didn't know what to do with her, since she wouldn't fall asleep in her bassinet and we were new and exhausted. So we took turns sleeping on the couch with her. We had a whole system so that she couldn't roll away from us and stay up. Plus I don't think either of us slept very well holding her. So this is how I found them at 6 AM on Brandon's birthday.

How cute is that.

I bought him some frozen deep dish pizza from Chicago for his birthday, and they came while we were in the hospital. Seeing this tiny baby now cracks me up, because we thought she was going to be tiny forever. Sad.

Brandon has jumped on this parenting wagon. He has no qualms about talking in weird voices, or reading books to a newborn, or singing songs to her to get her to sleep. His favorite is "Tinies need to go night-night". Sometimes we get the Spanish rendition.

 She LOVES watching him. Always.

 He is the much better swaddler. He actually took the time to Google how to do it and taught me.

 If she isn't swaddled in she loves to fall asleep with her arms under her head.

Brandon is so much more creative with ways to calm Cora down than I am. I'm hoping it's because he sleeps more at night (not his fault, there's only one of us who can feed her), so he has more functioning brain power. But at the end of every day, even if he has been in class for 9 hours, he comes home, puts his backpack down, and picks her up. (Usually from my half asleep half dressed arms.) That is how we discovered she loves being outside at night.

She loves napping with him.

He makes sure to get a lot of face time with her, and talk to her. Melt.

He also wants to make sure her "firsts" are super positive. Like getting in the ocean.

 This one kills me. She's so tiny!

We made him a footprint plate for Father's Day... it was like herding cats getting those tiny feet on the plate. 

But her best present was sleeping 6 1/2 hours straight! Then she got up, ate, and went back to sleep. When she got up again we took a picture to document.

Even a smile!

Happy first Father's Day, Brandon. I knew from the moment the tech said "It's a girl" that you would be a fantastic dad to her. I don't always feel like I deserve a husband as nice as you, but I know Cora deserves the best dad ever. And it seems like she has it.