Ryan James O'Sullivan

Yesterday we celebrated Paige’s 2nd birthday! It is staggering to look back and realize that Paige has been a part of our lives now for two years. What is more disorienting is it is hard to remember a time when Paige wasn’t a part of my life; she’s become such a core part of our day to day lives I couldn’t imagine a life without her.

The past year has been one full of firsts; there were probably less firsts pound for pound when compared to the first year of her life but the firsts of the second year of a child’s life feel much more definitive: Walking, talking, feats of surprising intelligence and seeming day to day more like a little person and not our little baby.

The most profound change in life with Paige this year has been a shift in the nature of our relationship.  As a baby Paige viewed Tammy and I as providers (obviously) but as she’s gotten older emotional attachment and needs have grown.  There is nothing in life more rewarding then coming home from a long day at the office and having Paige waiting at the top of the stairs yelling at the top of her lungs “DADDY DADDY DADDY… DADDYYYYYYYYYYYY I LOVE YOU DADDY”.

I cannot wait to see what this year will bring…

Yes ladies and gentleman the moment you have all been waiting for has arrived – Today, July 6th at approximately 6:21pm EST in the 2009th year of our Lord – My sac arrived.

It's my Sac in a Box

About a week late (due to a delay in customs – I cannot imagine why the above box would cause any concern) and after taking one of the most inefficient shipment routes I’ve ever seen (Quebec->Mississauga->Whitby->Toronto->Don Mills) my Sumosac has finally arrived.

For those of you wondering what in god’s name a Sumosac is here is the basic run down:  It is a bean bag chair on crack.  Instead of the traditional pellet/ball filling that eventually will end up all over your house it is filled with furniture grade foam like any other chair you likely have in your house.  Basically this is the Cadilac of Beanbag-like furniture.

Is the price you pay (229 bucks in this case) worth it?  That’ll have to wait for my review a week or so from now – for now I’ll cover the unboxing, cause quite frankly after the build up I’m way too excited about unboxing this beast.

Out of the box it started to grow and grow

I had read quite a few reviews both before my purchase (the almost universal high praise in those reviews are what led me to buy this thing in the end) and while waiting for the Sumosac to arrive so I thought I had a good handle on what to expect when the Sumosac arrived – that would be a no – reading about what happens when you open the box just does not do it justice.

As soon as I removed the Sumosac from the box the thing started to expand… not a weak sigh of release for the foam – no, an epic explosion.  Within about 45 seconds the Sac had expanded to about double its shipping size just insane.

Scale at about Unbox + 5 minutes

Above is what it grew to at about the five minute mark as I frantically moved objects in our office/play room to accommodate our new rapidly growing addition.

The steps Sumoslounge provide are pretty simple:

Step 1: Your sumo arrives in a plastic duffel, vacuum compressed for shipping. Carefully cut open the duffel, working down the side from the opening at the top.
Step 2: Take your sumo insert and it’s neatly folded cover out of the plastic bag, dispose of the bag.
Step 3: Break up large pieces of foam without opening the zipper on the insert, use some muscle. (NEVER open the zipper on the insert – if you do, foam will be EVERYWHERE).
Step 4: Let your sumo sit at least 24 hours in a warm place to allow the foam to expand.
Step 5: Fluff and fluff again, then fluff some more. Just keep fluffing until all the foam is broken up.
Step 6: Assemble your sumo – wrap fully fluffed insert in its cover and zip to close.
Step 7: Take some time to find your favorite position, relax and enjoy.

So Step 3 is where the fun begins – I proceed to jump on this thing, roll around, get in punching matches; everything I could think of doing to break apart the foam I did.  And man it was a lot of fun.  Spending the last year or so as a quasi-cripple has limited the amount of physical fun I’ve had (I know, with the Sac jokes we are already on immature human overload).  THIS WAS FUN.

See - Fun.

You didn't believe me? FUN!

Ahem.  So now several hours later this thing is getting crazy large.  I debated with Tammy initially about what size to get and man I think I’d be out an office if we had gone any bigger.  We went with the 4 foot model and it is well on its way to reaching that size.  Already the thing is starting to get comfortable, in fact the first time I sat down I thought to myself – you know you can just stop expanding now, you are quite comfortable as it is.

Even Tammy is starting to love the Sac

So with the Sumosac in the house for 5 hours now I can say we’ve already had a lot of fun and even managed to get a few moments of quality time cuddled up in its embarrassing foamy goodness.  And that’s it.  That’s the Sumosac in the O’Sullivan house so far.  I promise if I can ever remove myself from the Sac long enough I will post a full review in a week or so.

This coming week (November 28th to be exact) will mark my daughter’s first birthday. It is amazing to look back over the year and realize that it has flown by at impossible to comprehend speeds. Older parents with children who’ve moved away will often say cliche things like “enjoy your time now while you can” and for most people they take that as “when your kid gets to be a teenager they’ll be a smart ass and you’ll want to kill them” but I’m starting to appreciate that that is not at all what experienced parents mean.

Once this year is gone it will never come back, all the first and wonderful experiences will be memories to be cherished but never to be relived. I will never again get to experience Paige standing for the first time or the first day that she crawled to the gate at the top of the stairs when I came home from work and started calling out “da da da da da”. I have so many precious memories but I feel as if I’ve missed so much because of the hecticness of life that I’ll never be able to get back as well.

This year has been filled with so many fantastic moments that sometimes while they were happening the depth and impact of them were impossible to comprehend.

This pace started immediately in the hospital. One of my favorite pre-birth memories was calling my boss Dave and leaving him a voice mail message that “it” was going down. I wish he still had that voice mail because it captured how nervous, excited and truly terrified I was as the realization hit while I was on the phone THAT THIS THING IS HAPPENING.

Paige’s actual birth was also kind of symbolic of this break neck speed of life as well – Tammy’s labour was quick taking only a few hours and the actual pushing phase only took seven and a half pushes. That half push is a funny story. The doctor wasn’t even fully set up when Tammy gave what should have been the eigth push, Paige literally fell out of the womb with the doctor, the nurse and myself all diving in to catch her – it was quite a sight.

Paige is Born!

All of a sudden the world was a different place. Somehow there was a piece of me reproduced and existing as a part of this world. This beautiful little child (weighing in at only 5lbs by the time she had lost her initial birth weight) was mine. My responsibility, my ward, and my true legacy in this world.

Since that day I’ve watched with fascination as every day she has become more and more her own person with her own distinct traits. We’ve had so many incredible times one of my greatest fears is that I’ll forget some detail as I age. This whole journey has been so amazing I wouldn’t give up a single memory for anything.

My highlights from this year:

• the first night when she fell asleep in my arms
• the first time she pee’d on me (rite of pass non?)
• the first time she said da da
• the first time Tammy called me at work because the baby was overly cranky and the sound of my voice and talking to her on speaker phone calmed her down
• just in the last two weeks when she started hug and cuddling
• the first time we took a nap together. Every weekend Paige and I try and get one nap in together. I never sleep a wink because I can’t stop the urge to do everything I can to protect her when she’s so vulnerable in her sleep
• the first time she bit my nose and I realized that was her way of giving kisses (it still is – very odd)

Now as Paige approaches a year old she’s starting to become more independent, more cheerful and more loving with each passing day. She is almost always happy and those around her cannot help be drawn in by her loving smile. I cannot begin to say how proud I am of what she is becoming and I hope Paige you’ll read this one day and be reminded of how I treasure every smile, every babbled word and every minute of every day I’ve been able to spend with you.

I love you Paige – Thank you for this year and all that you have given me and your mother.