Brandon Gilbert

While some events have been dramatized, the following is based on a completely true story.***

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the BrandNewDad Zone.

Lightning flashed through the windows as Ryne and I sat huddled together in the Living Room. Candles were our only light, as the electricity had failed long ago. There was a stifling heat without the central air unit blowing cool air, but the rain was blowing too hard to open a window.

Ryne was being strong and courageous as ever (after all, he IS a superhero). I have to admit, I was a little frazzled at the crashing storm and lack of electricity. We don’t have a land line phone, but the cell towers had apparently been blown out by the storm because I couldn’t get a call out.

Apart from the storm, it was eerily silent. Usually in the hustle and bustle of an apartment complex, there are sounds of neighbors, cars, or the occasional dog barking. We also live in the northern approach for the Nashville airport, but there was no sound of planes. Only the wind, rain, and thunder.

Suddenly, there was a loud BOOM! as thunder roared right above us, though it seemed to be in the room with us. It was at that moment, we heard the unmistakable sound of bells coming from Ryne’s room at the end of the hall. At first, I was puzzled, I thought it might be a cell phone ring, but my cell phone was right beside me. Then it hit me. The sound was Ryne’s Mobile moving on it’s own. The same mobile that has to be wound by hand. The same mobile that does not operate on batteries. The same mobile that was at least 30 feet away from the closest living thing.

Dad: Do you hear that?
Son: Of course I hear it, remember…the doctor gave me a hearing test in the hospital…you’re still paying the bill for it.
Dad: That’s your mobile, and no one was in there to wind it up.
Son: Yeah, who’s scared of the mobile now…you don’t like it when the shoe’s on the other foot.
Dad: But you love the mobile, you always smile when the animals go around and it calms you down.
Son: I’m sorry, but are you trying to tell me what I like…again? Yeah, I love it. I lay down, you wind it up, and I end up losing hours at a time, with no memory of what’s just happened. Yeah, it’s great.
Dad: Well, regardless of that, no one is in there to wind it up or enjoy it right now. I had better go check it out.
Son: Are you crazy? Mommy loves those scary movies, and I know you’ve watched enough of them over the years with her to know that you never go check out strange noises.
Dad: But I have to protect you.
Son: Yeah, who’s going to protect me after your dead because the noises ate you? You didn’t think that through all the way did you?
Dad: OK, I suppose we will just sit here in the dark and let it continue to play for no possible explanation at all and pretend everything is fine.
Son: Well, not everything is fine.
Dad: What’s that smell?
Son: Isn’t my changing table in the room with the demonic mobile, along with all my diapers and wipes?

As you can see, things are not always as they appear, but they sure are as they smell, in the BrandNewDad Zone.

***The above story is completely true, except that it was during the day, there was no storm, the central air was blowing fine, and Ryne was taking a nap in his swing. The mobile, however, did play on its own for 5 seconds and did manage to freak me out for a few moments. Happy Halloween!

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When you bring a child home from the hospital, one of the first things other parents tell you is to cherish all the moments, because “they grow up so fast.” Well, until recently, those were just words to me. But over the last few weeks, they are becoming painfully more and more true. Last Thursday, Ryne turned 3 months old. To celebrate, I thought I would put a comparison pic together to see how much he’s grown. This is what I got:

The picture on the left is from the day we brought him home from the hospital. The picture on the right is from this past Sunday before we left for church. I’m not going to even try to lie about it. It’s hard for me to look at this picture without getting a little emotional. It was even hard for me to finish editing it together in photoshop.

I mean, if he was a full grown person, the transformation would be huge. We’re talking Spudd Webb to Shaquille O’Neal, Dr. David Banner to Incredible Hulk, David to Goliath. By comparison, he’s so huge. I know it’s supposed to be this way, but if in three months there’s this much difference, what do I do in eighteen years? It’s hard to fathom my baby boy as an eighteen year old, but I’m sure my parents thought the same thing twenty-eight years ago. It’s definitely a life lesson on how fast time truly does fly by.

On the flip side, with all this new growth, comes fantastic new “tricks” that his body lacked the coordination to do before. So in honor of his three months on this Earth, here are my favorite new things Ryne can do.

1. When I pick him up, he puts his arms around my neck.
2. While he doesn’t quite reach yet, he will thrust his body towards someone who he wants to go to.
3. He’s gained quite a bit of coordination in his arms and hands and can now grab for things.
4. Also with his new found coordination of arms, he can give me and Jamie fist bumps. As soon as he learns what an open palm is, we’ll try to graduate to high-fives.
5. He stays awake longer during the day and concentrates on things more. This resulted in great Father-Son time this past weekend when he sat beside me and watched the whole first half of the Auburn-Arkansas game with me, took a nap, and then the whole second half of Alabama-Ole Miss (which is the one we really cared about anyway).
6. I know I am tempting fate here, but he’s also sleeping longer at night. 6-7 hours’ worth. This is a blessing, and Lord, I pray it continues to be a blessing.

I know it’s his job to grow up, and I know it’s my job to make sure he does it as best I can. But it’s going by way too fast.

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Sometimes, songs just capture the exact thing your going through in life. This song comes pretty close for Me, Jamie, and Ryne. It’s a situation that has its benefits, but none of us like it very much. I’d much rather be working, Jamie would much rather be at home, and Ryne would much rather have Mommy at home.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Ryne is too young to be able to tell the difference between Mommy and Daddy being at home with him, but believe me, he knows. Tonight cemented that thought for me.

Jamie gets off work at 8 PM on days that she works. Ryne usually eats about every 3 hours during the day. Jamie pumps and I give him the bottles during the day, then she feeds him when she gets home and at night. Today, he took a little longer of an afternoon nap than usual. He ate at 2:30, but then slept until 7:45. I didn’t want to feed him then, because then Jamie couldn’t feed him right when she got home.

So, this meant I had to somehow keep happy a baby who hadn’t eaten in 5 hours. This is a tricky situation. First we played “Who’s a handsome boy?” Which is a game where I ask Ryne, “who’s a handsome boy?”, and he gurgles an answer indicating that he knows that he is. This is the game I play with my son to ensure he is conceited and narcissistic when he gets older, but that’s another story. This lasted for about 10 minutes. I then tried TV. TV doesn’t always work, but sometimes he gets mesmerized. Tonight was not one of those nights. So, it came down to the last resort, singing and a pacifier.

The pacifier is significant because until this past Sunday when I had to employ the same technique in Church, he had not had a pacifier in quite some time. I didn’t want to re-enforce this habit and have it become a crutch later on down the road, but I also couldn’t take 20 minutes of “Why are you waterboarding me and pulling out my toenails with pliers” – type screaming. So I gave him the pacifier and sang him a song I wrote for him, and by “wrote” I mean I came up with it one morning at 3 AM when he just refused to go to sleep. But he seems to like it, so I kept it.

I also employed the bargaining technique. I don’t know if it actually works, but I see parents using it all the time. This is where I told him, “If you can wait just a few more minutes, Mommy will be home and she’ll give you the good stuff. You don’t want daddy to heat up a frozen dinner when you can have a fresh meal in just a few more minutes, right?” Yes, I use this technique on my son who has no concept of time except that every day has 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and 2 dinners. Miraculously, through much prayer, he stopped crying.

Then Jamie came home. I said, “Look, buddy, now Mommy’s home, and she’s gonna give you a good meal.” He turned his head, looked past me, and then… WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
I’ve never heard such language from a child. He went through his whole day. “Daddy didn’t warm up the milk enough, Daddy took me out in the rain, Daddy let me sleep all day, Daddy wouldn’t feed me once I woke up! I missed you Mommy!”

So, Jamie took him from me, and of course the crying stopped. He was truly happy to see his Mommy. He was also happy to have filet mignon instead of ground beef.

Ryne has discovered his own shadow. This has been going on for a few weeks now, but I wanted to get a good take on it before I wrote about it. We leave the light on in the bathroom by his room and it casts shadows on his wall by his changing table at night. One night I got him out of his crib to change his diaper, and I noticed he was staring intently at the wall. He then smiled real big and started laughing at the wall.  It then hit me that there was a shadow of me holding him being cast on the wall. I thought it was maybe a one time occurrence, but then he started doing it every time that I took him to the changing table.

Next came the hand puppets. He eventually realized that once he was on the changing table that he could make shadows with his hands and feet on the wall. This too amused him quite a bit. He just stares at the wall and laughs and laughs as his hands and feet create a magical theater where he’s the only patron.

Occasionally, the shadows are not quite as nice and apparently curse at him, because he looks at the shadows and starts making his “sad baby” face. Most of the time they are kind. I am starting to make friends with them as well.