Dad Ears

I have to start out by saying that I love my husband and he is an AMAZING father.  He's attentive, changes diapers, helps with feedings, and loves our baby girl.  It's funny though the differences between me and him in our parenting style, which I've come to learn is pretty common between moms and dads.

The first difference is what I call "Dad ears".  I don't know about anybody else, but I seem to hear every little hiccup, whine, coo, or cry that comes out of Alex.  The first week she slept in a bassinet in our room and besides the fact that we were new parents, it seemed every noise she made woke me up.  Even today, I'll be in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and I'll hear a squeal or a cry in the other room even about the stove fan and noise.  My husband, not so much.  It's not that he's not attentive, he just doesn't have that fine tuned hearing :). He calls that hearing, "Mommy radar", which I agree with.  It's like, out of a hundred babies crying, pick yours out.  I guarantee you any good mom could do it in a second!

The best example are at night.  Our bedroom shares a wall with Alex.  I can hear her babbling in the morning, or when she starts to get fussy at night.  She pretty much needs to be screaming in order for Mark to actively wake up.  The occasions he takes the middle of the night feeding, usually I'm the one shaking him saying, "Honey, the baby's crying". I usually get a huh? ok.  There are still the occasional night where I have to let Alex cry it out, and I hate it.  The other night she screamed for an hour until she was literally horse and could barely scream anymore.  We had our loud fan on in the bedroom, and I put in earplugs and I could still hear everything.  I laid in bed feeling horrible the entire hour, not understanding how Mark could sleep through it.  The next morning, Mark was like, "I didn't even know she cried until I read your facebook page." (Note here, he goes to work before I wake up, so we do actually talk :)). Or the other morning, Alex had woken up early and sat in her crib talking for about 10 min then started crying cause she wanted out and was not happy.  I let her cry for another 15 min or so (until 7:30) then got out of bed.  Mark asked, "Is the baby up?" I told him she's been up for almost a half hour.  It still kind of baffles me sometimes.

Mark teaching Alex the Wii at 2 weeks old :)

There's also the difference in his ability to handle her crying.  When she cries, most of the time it breaks my heart and I feel like I HAVE to go to her now.  He seems to tolerate it much easier.  It's not that he likes hearing her cry, but it's not the same physical reaction as I have.  When she gets frustrated I want to makes things easier right away, he wants to let her figure things out for herself more.  I don't know if it's a dad vs mom thing, or simply a me vs him thing.  I tend to be higher strung when it comes to Alex, and he's much more relaxed which I think tends to be very common in most relationships. I think that's why we balance each other out so well.  Our parenting styles may be different, but they are cohesive.

Watching playoff hockey.  It's very serious business

 However, Alex loves her papa and they have their own little relationship.  He's especially playful and makes her giggle a lot.  I get a lot of the loves and cuddles, whereas he gets more of the loud giggles and funny faces.  He can throw her up in air and swing her around and be a dad.  Although I think a lot of the times she's laughing AT him, not necessarily with him :).  They watch sports together, despite Alex being too young to understand what she's watching, but she'll watch TV with him.  He makes funny faces and gets really cute reactions out of her.  Not to mention she still loves to poop for her papa, which I think is hilarious.  I don't love changing a poopy diaper, I mean, who does?  His reaction though is far more animated then mine, which gets endless giggles from the baby.

Hanging on like a little monkey

Fun with Papa

The best part is watching her with her papa.  When he comes home from work, she lights up and gives him big smiles right away.  She turns her head when she hears his voice, and most recently likes having babbly conversations with him.  She is papa's girl, although I think mommy gets a lot of love too!  Each relationship is different, but together we're a happy family!