March 28th, 2003

Landon is going through an awkward stage right now, he’s losing his hair, one randomly selected patch at a time. Over the past week his hair slowly has disappeared to the point that now he posseses the hair style of a participant in a ‘hair club for men’ commercial. All of his hair has abandoned the top of his cranium, and small patches are beginning to fade away on the sides and back, if you look at him at just the right angle, you can almost make out a bulls eye pattern. The hair that is left is still pretty long and dark brown. Every morning we wake up not knowing what new look Landon will be sporting, and every morning his new hairstyles give us one extra reason to smile.

As if the hair loss wasn’t enough, Landon has also been experiencing a fairly bad case of baby acne. It has something to do with the difference in hormones that he is exposed to now since he is no longer in the womb where Rhiannon’s hormones ran rampant. The pimples began on his forehead, and slowly spread across his face until they had conquered every pore on his precious little face. They have already begun to fade away, although they did leave a permanent mark on his one month portrait. His soft baby skin has begun to return to his chubby cheeks.

Landon is also growing, which makes sense because of how much he is eating (although sometimes the amount of crap he generates seems large enough to cancel out his intake). We weighed and measured him at the hatchery the other day, as of March 27th, Landon weighs 12 lbs and in 24 inches in length. He is averaging 8 oz and a half an inch of growth every week. At this rate, he will be taller than his dad in just a few short years, and ready for the NBA by kindergarten.

A new sound has been heard around the house – Landon has begun to coo. It is the softest, sweetest, gentlest sound. Every time he emits this new vocalization Rhiannon and I anxiously look to each other to confirm what just bounced off our ear drums; another way Landon has lightened our days with increased smiles. It definitely makes the tough, crying and wailing periods easier to handle. Welcome to the ups and downs of the rollercoaster ride of a newborn.

March 23rd, 2004

Another big first has occurred in Landon’s young life; and for that sake a big first for his parents as well. Last Saturday marked the first night that the Buhr’s spent the night away from home as a family. We trekked down to San Diego to spend time with family, and to visit the guy who does our taxes, so the weekend was definitely filled with some highs and lows.

The government is again going to grab money out of our already shallow pockets. The tax guy again reiterated this year that we need to invest in a house. We asked him if after having just looked over our annual income if he thought it would really be possible to purchase even a hovel in the over priced Southern California real estate market. He sheepishly nodded his head in agreement.

We had a lunchtime bbq with Andrea, and Landon’s great grandparents Sharp were also able to attend. We couldn’t have been there more than five minutes before they layered guilt all over us about the fact that almost a month had gone by since the last time they had seen their great grandson. I assured them that the time between our next visit would not be so long, and also reminded them that the freeway goes in both directions (a phrase that I find myself using frequently). Landon is a very, very popular kid.

We spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday with my parents in Poway. I lay awake for a few hours late that night, holding Landon while he stubbornly refused to fall asleep. It was a strange place to find myself in, one that I hadn’t ever imagined visiting. Here I was, holding my newborn son, in the same room I spent most of my adolescence in, staring at the same walls. Late nights spent worrying about tests, or figuring out the best way to approach the girl in my history class, have quickly warped into a time zone where I now lay awake wondering how much longer this tiny boy in my arms could possibly keep his eyes open. I guess growing up, you never really picture little events like that as a grown-up, at least I know that I never did. Landon finally fell asleep, I actually stayed awake awhile longer, thinking about how different my life is now than it was ten years ago, and wondering what the next ten years would bring.

Sunday was spent watching more NCAA basketball, and spending time with the family. My Dad and I visited a nearby nursery, and picked up a pair of poplar trees to plant over Lucy’s grave. The trees themselves were over ten feet tall, so we drove them back standing out of the wide open sliding side door on their minivan, tied in by a few strips of twine. It was a slow ride, filled with questioning stares from the cars that raced pass our slow tree convoy home. The trees looked great in the yard, and I thanked my Dadagain for allowing us to bury Lucy in such a beautiful place. His reply was that although it was probably illegal, he hoped to be buried in the yard as well someday. The statement caught me off guard; I don’t think I was ready to hear my Dad talking about is death, especially in such a straight forward manner. It ran through my head several times the rest of the day, but the more I thought about it, the more I understood. The only thing I think that he may enjoy more than his yard, are his poems, and I’m guessing he may want to be buried with some of them as well.

Justin came down later in the day as well. It was great to see him; and to watch how excited he was to see his nephew – he even asked to check out a dirty diaper, explaining that he wanted to know everything he could about the little guy. I know it’s hard for him to live so far away, and to be honest it’s hard for me to have him gone right now as well. He’s a great friend, brother and uncle.

March 19th, 2004

This past week marks the unfortunate end of my extended family vacation/paternity leave, and my return to the work force. The first few days were a little disjointed, my work email held 96 unread messages, by mailbox was full of phone messages, some of them over three weeks old (those are fun calls to return), and my desk, strangely enough, was just as cluttered as I had left it. I felt like I was wading in a fast moving river, where every step is contemplated and deliberate, and slow like molasses, and every time you pick your head up the water goes rushing by so fast your eyes can hardly catch up. But I have readjusted more or less; the biggest difference that I notice now is that I am out of the office when the clock hits 4:30pm, and not a minute later, off to the freeway, racing home to see my little boy. The ride home seems twice as long.

This week also saw the return of college basketball’s year end tournament. “March Madness” has officially settled in on the television set at home, and the radio speakers in my car. Landon and I have already taken in several of the games together, although he rarely makes it to the final buzzer without dozing off.

Watching the games with Landon sitting shotgun next to me on the couch has set my mind wandering about what it might feel like to be a parent at a sporting event, watching their child compete. Last weekend we went to watch our next door neighbor Brooke compete in the championship game in her youth basketball league. The parents in attendance were so excited, and most of them cheered loudly for all of the young girls on the court. I could commiserate completely with the desire to have their child succeed; I could only imagine how gratifying it must feel to watch the look of accomplishment that spreads rapidly across after a young child’s face after they make a play contributing to the game. I doubt if anyone there even noticed the scoreboard, which was good because Brooke’s team, the Vaqueros, got annihilated. At one point in the game the Vaqueros had yet to score, and were already down by 15 points, a huge margin in a game of eight year old girls. One of Brookes teammates stole the ball, drove the court, and scored – the whole place erupted. The whole place that is, except for the opposing team’s coach, who was busy storming onto the court, blasting the referees, insisting they reverse their call, because of some defensive press violation. I guess when I said that nobody was watching the scoreboard I was wrong, because it appeared that’s all this coach cared about. After a several minute long tirade he bullied the refs into reversing the call, the points came off the board, and the little girl who scored, looked completely baffled as to why her great play, had suddenly been negated. The gymnasium erupted with jeers, but the coach looked on smugly, content that he had increased his team’s already insurmountable lead. It’s an incredibly frustrating part of youth sports, the coach who loses sight of why the kids are there in the first place, I hope to coach Landon some day, and I hope to never be that kind of poor example.

I don’t have any delusions of grandeur about Landon playing in the NCAA, his father, all stretched out barely hits the 5’10” mark, and weighs in at a soaking wet 145 lbs, but in the case that he does play in collegiate athletics, I can only imagine what a thrill it would be to watch him compete. Then again, it is probably a thrill to watch your kid do anything that they enjoy. Right now I get a kick out of watching him struggle to hold his head up and look me in the eye, while he sits on my lap. It would be great though if Landon does enjoy spending some time on a trout stream with his pops some day….a father can only hope.

March 14th, 2004

A few days have past now since the first official hours were logged as solely father and son time between Landon and me. Last Friday, Rhiannon left the two of us alone so she could go and get a well deserved hair cut and style. I approached this time with trepidation, unsure of what these hours might hold, but looked forward to the time with my new son. After a sweet kiss, and with a cell phone close at hand, Rhiannon exited, and Landon and I were left blankly staring at each other.

The afternoon held limitless opportunities. We could sit on the couch and watch college basketball divisional playoffs, we could go run a few errands, we could both cry our lungs out and count down every second until Mommy returned. It was an unseasonably warm day for late winter, so we boldly decided to spend some time in the sunshine. There is a man-made lake a few blocks from our place; it seemed the perfect destination for a casual stroll, and maybe a chance to wet a line, for the first time, as a father-son team. So I bundled Landon up, and strapped him to my chest in some sort of reverse backpack contraption called a “baby bjorn”, grabbed a rod and we were off. I decided that for this first outing Dakota would have to wait at home.

The walk to the lake was absolutely perfect, the weather was outstanding, and Landon was peacefully awake, enjoying the ride. I even phoned my brother to brag about this exciting endeavor. By the time we arrived at the shoreline Landon had passed out against my chest, I tied on a lure, and made a few casts. After standing still for a few minutes, the lack of movement caught Landon’s attention and raised him from his slumber. Cries immediately ensued. However, I quickly determined that by walking again he would drift back off to sleep. So a new mode of fishing became invented, I would take a few steps, make a quick cast, and then hurriedly move again, never pausing long enough for Landon to regain alertness. It worked well, as far as keeping him placated, but the fishing side of the outing suffered. After an hour and a half of walking and casting and walking some more, I received a call that Rhiannon was on her way home, and so too decided that the walls of home beckoned for us.

It was on this return trip that I began to notice how incredibly hot I had become. While fishing, I had failed to realize that I had been walking around under the noon sun with a little, compact thermally constant biological organism. My son was in effect cooking my chest, and I too was probably overheating him.

We made it the rest of the way home uneventfully, Landon still dreaming away. I removed him from his pack, and set him down on the couch. A few moments later Rhiannon returned, just in time for the downward spiral to begin. Landon awoke, and began to cry; thinking he might be hungry (it was past his lunch time) we tried to feed him. He wailed. We walked him around the house. He screamed. We looked at each other struggling to discern what the little guy wanted. More crying. We stripped him down to a diaper and patted him with a cool washcloth. He hollered. We walked him around the block hoping the movement might quiet him down as it had previously. His unhappy vocalizations continued. We passed him back and forth for the next few hours. We shrugged our shoulders. We felt like crying. More quivering lips and wet tears.

Finally, over two hours later, he calmed down and passed out with Rhiannon, as she simultaneously crashed out to dreamland still cradling him in her quaking arms. I just stared at the walls, too wiped out too sleep, already contemplating what might happen on the next father and son outing.

March 10th, 2004

Landon is slowly starting to settle into a few patterns. His day starts (if it ever really ends) around 8:00am when he wakes up for his first feeding of the day. Most of Landon’s feedings are announced by his cries ringing through the house, with the only permanent cure being a soft breast, filled with warm milk thrust in front of his face. Feeding events usually last close to thirty minutes, and are interspersed with bouts of burping. After being fed, a dirty diaper usually needs to be removed; this has the unintentional effect of reawaking Landon and gears him up for the rest of the morning. The following morning hours are usually spent going for a walk with the family, and often staring at Mom and Dad, flailing appendages wildly, while they attempt to interact with their son through “educational and meaningful” mental and physical exercises. At no time during the morning does Landon appear worn out, and at the mere placement in his bassinet he begins to wail. 11:00am rolls around, and its time to feed the bottomless pit once again. By this point Landon has been awake for several hours and his baby batteries are just about all used up, the problem is he is usually too damn tired at this point to remember where his on/off switch is, so crankiness inevitably ensues. The next hour or so ebbs and flows between Landon staring through the wall in a blank zombie like trance, and uncontrollable, chin quivering cries. Eventually the yawns succeed in their battle against the tears and Landon literally passes out. This hour is one of the most trying of the day. Once silence has finally returned, Landon enters into such a deep slumber that the family usually ventures out into the scary world that exists outside of the safety of our household walls, to take care of a few of the countless errands that get added to the list hanging on the fridge. Between 2:00 and 3:00pm Landon awakes again for another meal, and this feeding is again quickly chased away by continued napping, at times it seems like this feeding is little more than a naptime diversion for the little guy as he often crashes asleep, mouth wide open in a sea of milk and nipple. Dinner time is usually around 5:00pm, followed by a short period of play, and then the favorite, continued slumber. Mom and Dad use this break to scarf down some well needed nourishment of their own and may steal a few minutes on the computer, phone, or other much needed distraction. Sometime around 8:00pm Landon arises again, eats again, and then mirrors his parents adoring stares again. Shortly thereafter he is whisked upstairs where a warm bathtub waits. Landon genuinely seems to enjoy bath time; he appears calm and relaxed in the water, and rarely makes and uncomfortable grimace or voices concern. A dry towel then wraps him up and takes him to his changing where he is massaged, and bundled up in his pajamas for the night. We usually try to read a story to him following his bath, and then cross our fingers and hope he drifts off to sleep. Unfortunately this rarely happens. Landon for some reason unknown to us winds up the crank-wagon again in the evening. He gets fussy and uncomfortable and fights going to sleep for the next hour or so. This hour rivals the mid afternoon for the “most difficult to survive” award. Finally the urge to sleep takes over, and more often than not this takes place in the warm arms of one of his parents, its hard to let him go when he finally gets so peaceful, I hope our excessive holding him isn’t spoiling the guy. Around 11:00pm Landon rolls awake for a late night snack, and again between 2:00 and 3:00am he opens his eyes and lungs for an even later night snack. Rhiannon usually handles most of these feedings herself; while I’m sure she looks over bitterly at her snoring husband sprawled out next to her in bed. One more feeding at 5:00am, this time Landon tends to be a little more resistant to continued sleep and so Dad gets to take over calming him down while Mom tries to catch up on some rest. A quick turn of the head toward the digital alarm clock and (after an excessively long paragraph) its 8:00am all over again. (Please note that several diaper changes and burping sessions were removed for the sake of the reader).

Oh yeah, and have I mentioned lately that I still can’t even start to grasp the fact that I am a father! It is by far the most exciting and at the same time bizarre thing that has ever happened to me. I highly recommend it.

Rhiannon got a call from her Ob/Gyn, Dr. Fiorentino, yesterday, except weird thing is, he was calling to talk to me. Rhiannon handed the phone off to me with a confused expression, and slowly walked away, slow enough to pick up the first few lines of our conversation. It turns out that Dr. Fiorentino is planning on setting up a website for his practice, and when he did an online search for his name, to make sure there weren’t other Dr. Fiorentino’s out there, Streamside was churned out by his search engine. He was calling to let me know how much he enjoyed the journal, and thanks for the “plug”, as he put it. He is a real genuine guy, after talking for a brief while we hung up, and I was left thinking about him more as a person. Sometimes its nice to hear when you brighten someone’s day.

March 5th, 2004

Landon is becoming more active and alert with every new day. This is definitely a double edged sword - while it’s great to spend more awake time with him, he also is requiring much more attention than the last couple of weeks. Where he used to float through the hours between his feedings asleep on his pillow, more often than not he will be awake for 3 to 4 hours at a time, and these waking hours are not all filled with giggles and soft coos. Landon’s lungs are developing well, and he seems to be finding more frequent opportunities to voice his opinion with them. I've heard it said that after awhile as a parent you can identify a baby’s needs by the sound of his cries, well, I’m not there yet. Right now I pretty much assume Landon is either hungry, or hungry, or maybe he needs a diaper change, if not that, then he’s probably hungry. I’m still trying to figure the little guy out; I think I probably always will be.

Dakota seems to be a little depressed since Lucy’s death. She is spending more time with the family downstairs, in the past she would often spend hours upstairs with the cat. She is definitely getting more attention from Rhiannon and me, I think we both feel like we took Lucy for granted a little, and we don’t want to repeat that with Dakota – this has turned into a real windfall for her resulting in increased treats and time in the park playing fetch. I think the extra time with the dog has been therapeutic for both of us as well.

Our neighbors next door have three children, Brooke (8), Hunter (6), and Josh (4). They are great kids. We’ve gone to some of their soccer, and baseball, and basketball games. We’ve gone trick or treating with them the past two Halloweens. I was talking to their mother, Tiffany, the other day, and she informed me that all of the kids had been spying from their upstairs window on my birthday get together with friends last Saturday night . The next morning Hunter stumbled downstairs and reported to his parents that, “Gabe had a log in his mouth last night, and it was on fire!” I didn’t realize that smoking a cigar could turn me into a wizard and a bad influence all at once; in the future I’ll have to be a little more aware of what audiences I might have. This will especially be true with Landon, its good to have neighbors that can run us through some pre-season drills.

March 1st, 2004

Today Rhiannon, Landon, Dakota and I all bundled up and drove down to my parent’s house in Poway. They have a large yard of almost an acre and on it exists some of the more lush and diverse landscaping I have seen. My parents are somewhat eclectic folks, and this is definitely reflected in their yard. They have hundreds of various trees, shrubs, bushes and flowers. So when Rhiannon suggested we bury Lucy there, I couldn’t think of a more fitting resting place for our loved little feline, and we could definitely plant something in her memory that could then be a part of the wonderful forest that grows within my parent’s fence.

My parents were both present for some of the afternoon. My Dad showed me where I could dig Lucy’s grave; my Mom spent some time with Rhiannon, and watched Landon while we got things ready. It took close to 2 hours to dig the grave 3 feet deep, thanks in large part to the 18 inches of clay I had to scrape my way through. Interesting enough though, I found the whole grave digging process somehow cathartic. It gave me some time to be alone to think about Lucy, and to also exert some physical exercise toward the positive goal of giving her a fitting final resting place. I definitely walked away from the experience feeling better. We buried Lucy after a few quiet words were said, and vowed to plant a poplar tree over he grave. We left a flower over her, and eerily I noticed upon returning home, that the flower we selected looked strikingly similar to the painting that hangs on a wall in Lucy’s room (our downstairs bathroom).

March 2nd, 2004

This afternoon was Landon’s first official visit to his pediatrician. Dr. Mackey is a young doctor with a quiet and somewhat jovial bedside manner, he actually reminded Rhiannon and I both of our college friend Kevin who also is now a pediatrician. Landon is doing famously; he weighed and measured in above the 90th percentile compared to newborns his age. All of Rhiannon’s numerous questions and concerns were patiently listened to and reassuredly answered. It felt good to hear that all is going well.

Before we left, while I was downstairs folding laundry, Rhiannon screamed from upstairs, “Oh my God! Get up here fast! I need help!” I freaked out and flew up the stairs wondering what terrible thing had just happened to my son. Ever since Sunday night I have been extremely on edge and scared about how delicate Landon is, so as I headed up the stairs I assumed the worst. Their in the rocking chair sat Rhiannon, holding our son after changing him, with a big pile of fresh baby shit in her lap. Apparently she had finished cleaning him up, put on a new diaper, and sat down in the rocking chair to calm him down, when another round of yellow, baby, wonderpoo escaped out of the back of his newly applied diaper. Suffice it to say that this was not the emergency I had envisioned. I helped clean the two of them up, then left the room so that my heart might stop racing. I explained to Rhiannon how she had freaked me out, and begged her to reserve such screams for help for actual emergencies. It literally took me hours to calm back down.

After another day of accomplishing little and falling on the couch fatigued by the end of the day, we have affectionately nicknamed Landon the “Black Hole”. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, he manages to suck up and obliterate all the hours in the day. I am still trying to figure out where the minutes from 5:30 to 8:30 went this afternoon.

Birthday Weekend February 27th – 29th, 2004

This past weekend was a busy one as we continued to celebrate Landon’s arrival, as well as occasionally remember that Saturday was my 29th birthday; one year to go until thirty which is a little scary.

Friday night we visited with Rhiannon’s parents at their place. Rhiannon’s grandparents, Landon’s great grandparents Alonzo came to spend a little time with Landon as well. The Alonzos played a big part in Rhiannon’s childhood. Rhiannon’s mother had her at a very young age, and already had Andrea a year prior, I can assuredly state that both girls would not have developed into such strong women today without the early help they had while growing up with their grandparents. I’m sure in some ways the Alonzos view Rhiannon and Andrea more as daughters than as grandchildren. This becomes immediately apparent when observing their reactions with Landon as well. They are so excited about the little guy. Landon was a little fussy this evening, and his great granddad Alonzo sang him a Mexican lullaby that his mother (Landon’s great, great grandmother) used to sing him. To see this big, Mexican, WWII veteran sing to such a little child with such warmth and obvious affection was amazing. Landon stopped crying almost immediately.

Saturday was a big day. We had plans to have quite a few of our close friends over to meet Landon, and even more importantly, my brother Justin was flying down from San Francisco to meet his nephew for the first time. He was also bringing his new girlfriend Jenn along, they would be spending the night with us at our place, which I hoped would give Rhiannon and I the chance to get to know Jenn a little better.

I picked Justin and Jenn up from the airport around 11:30; we grabbed some lunch and hurried home so that Justin and Landon could get to know each other a little before the rest of the gang arrived. Landon had been awake most of the morning and was pretty fussy when I left for the airport. He is currently going through a phase where occasionally he will stay up for three or four hours at a time, which is a long period for a child that is only a few weeks old. At the end of these awake periods he becomes quite cranky and refuses to rest. The frustrated look on his face almost seems like he has become so geared up and wiped out that he has forgotten how to relax enough to fall asleep. Eventually after some fitful bawling he crashes out, but avoiding these situations has become a new goal around the house. As we returned from the airport Landon was finally settling down from one of these sessions so we decided it would be best if Justin observed Landon asleep for the time being, they could get some uncle – nephew face time a little later.

Our friends began to arrive between shortly after 2:00. Eryn, Heather, Adam and Diana showed up first, shortly followed by Norm and Teri. Rhiannon brought Landon downstairs shortly thereafter and introduced him to everyone. He was still passed out from the morning’s episode, so he slept quite soundly as he was passed from lap to lap. It was entertaining to watch just about everyone fumble around with how to handle the little guy, excluding Norm and Teri I don’t think any of our guests had much experience with newborns. Uncle Justin was especially comical as Landon kind of just slouched down into a pile in his lap, with his head cocked awkwardly to one side. He improved his nephew holding techniques drastically by the end of the weekend.

The rest of the gang filtered in over the next few hours, Iwan and Sara, the Reynolds crew (Ben, Leslie, Nate, Melissa, and little Jay), Becky, Kalia and Zach, Dave, and Chad and his new girlfriend Shawna. One interesting thing about the dynamics of our friends is that aside from Jay and Dave we have all pretty much coupled off, and most of our friends are now either married or in long term, committed relationships. I guess we’re all growing up and getting old without even realizing it.

Out of this group of friends we are the second couple to have a child, and the Yarris clan, with their son Jacob lives in Portland, so this afternoon was a chance for a lot of the crew to catch a first glimpse at the world of parenting firsthand. Plenty of questions were asked concerning sleep deprivation, labor events, changes in body morphology (these mostly revolved around Rhiannon’s obviously swollen chest), and general inquiries into what it was like to have a son. Unfortunately for some of these questions a verbal response is incredibly inadequate. Ben and Leslie are expecting their first child in August, so I think for them this was an especially rewarding experience. It was fun to watch them hold Landon, and see the excitement on there faces as they realized that in the not too distant future they would be cuddling a child of their own. Landon was well behaved the entire afternoon and evening, he must have coordinated all of his fussiness to be released in the morning which was very considerate of him.

We ordered several pizzas, tipped a few beers, and ended the night toasting Landon over a poker table and cigars. It was a great day, one of the best birthdays I can remember (perhaps because I can’t remember all of my birthdays). I feel really fortunate to have so many close friends at this stage in my life. I am surrounded my so many supportive and positive people, I can only hope that Landon will be so lucky. I know that all of these friends will influence Landon just was positively as they all have influenced my life. Cheers.

Sunday my parents drove up with my grandmom to continue the birthday/Landon celebration further. We went out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant down the street, and then reconvened at our house for some relaxed time together as a family. My mom is so excited to be a grandmother it cracks me up, before we even took 2 steps across the restaurant’s parking lot she came rushing up, anxious to view her sleeping grandson. The first poems for Landon were produced by my dad, they were good, I still teeter on being fairly emotional from becoming a father myself, at least one of his poems caused me to get a little choked up. It was great to share the same room with my parents, brother, wife and son for the first time; hopefully it will be a preview for the years ahead. Hugs were exchanged, and plans were made to see Justin again at the end of March, and the house emptied out for the last time that weekend.

Rhiannon, Landon and I were all wiped out so we raced upstairs with dog and cat in tow to take a much needed nap as a family.