Eat, burp and poop

Eat, burp and poop

MATT DURR

Staff Writer

It’s 1:30 a.m. I have to wake up for class in six hours, and I have to study for a quiz I’m not ready for. I couldn’t be happier. I thought I would hate waking up in the middle of the night to change diapers and make formula. And while I certainly do not like having my sleep interrupted, I enjoy bonding with my daughter. On Sept. 25, my wife Holly and I welcomed Mackenzie Erin Durr to our family. After an exhausting 29-hour labor that included two epidurals, our daughter was ready to join us on the big stage. I spent her entire first night watching her while fighting back tears. I was so overjoyed by seeing her, while also struggling with my own emotions. I wished my parents were alive to see her beautiful face. Only a week after her birth, it’s hard to imagine life without her. My fears about how to take care of her seem to have been created by my own imagination. Call it paternal instincts, but taking care of her hasn’t been as hard as I thought. Feeding, burping and clothing have all come naturally. I’ve become an expert at swaddling, and I am proud to say I changed her first diaper, problem free. That is until she immediately filled it. The first couple weeks haven’t been problem free, however. She was born with some fluid in her lungs, so she spent her first few hours away from her mom. After being home for three days, she wasn’t feeding as well as we had hoped, so we spent an afternoon at the emergency room where she was treated for dehydration. Thankfully, she was sent home with no complications. She is doing much better now, although my wife and I were disappointed she had to start using formula. We planned on nursing her, but nature would not cooperate. But Mackenzie is back home, feeding well and doing fine. And that is all that matters to me at this point. I’ve spent the last two weeks spending as much time with her as possible, and it’s been a blast. Watching the wonder in her eyes as she looks at her surroundings warms my heart. The doctors told us to talk to her as a way to calm her down when she is fussy. So I spent one Saturday explaining what a 4-3 defense was, and why Greg Robinson is a terrible defensive coordinator. My wife thought I was crazy — until it worked. So far, the late nights have been worth it, and even as I finish writing this at 2:15 a.m., life is good. They tell me she will soon start sleeping through the night. And although it will be nice to sleep for more than three hours at a time, I think I’m going to miss these late-night, father-daughter sessions.