There is no trip on the NFL calendar I look forward to more than the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.

But this year, I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

As Midwest Airlines flight 1333 winged its way to Indianapolis at a cruising altitude of 19,000 feet on Thursday morning, the guy in seat 8A – me – could not focus.

Despite a to-do list a mile long for this weekend’s NFL Scouting Combine – prepping questions for the big Q&A sessions with Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson, compiling a list of draft prospects to talk to, making dinner reservations in my role as the Julie McCoy cruise director of my little reporters social circle, trying to rediscover my 3-point shot – all I could think about as I stared out the window were the girls (one big one, one little one) I’d left behind.

They were in varying degrees of sleepiness – Paula just barely coherent, Madison out like a light and snoring in a way that her mom, a notorious snoring-hater when it’s her husband sawing the logs, finds adorable – when Andrus picked me up at 4 o’clock, so I’m not entirely sure if either one of them noticed when I kissed them goodbye.

I look forward to annual trip to the Combine for both professional and personal reasons. Professionally, it’s the epicenter of the NFL and the unofficial kickoff of the offseason – free agency is about to start, draft preparations are underway in earnest. Everyone who’s anyone in the NFL is here – we saw new Seattle Seahawks GM John Schneider and coach Pete Carroll in the Marriott hotel bar the first night, for instance, and I met Rex Ryan at the Steak & Shake around midnight Saturday night – and coaches and personnel men are generally more accessible and willing to chat than they are at any other point in the NFL year.

Personally, it’s my favorite trip of the year because I get to reconnect with my friends and colleagues throughout the league – Judd Zulgad of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Kent Somers of the Arizona Republic, Mike Silver of Yahoo! Sports, Darren Urban of the Arizona Cardinals, mentors John McClain of the Houston Chronicle and Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News, Rick Stroud of the St. Pete Times, Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times … well, you get the idea. There’s also the daily sportswriter basketball game at the National Institute of Fitness and Sport on the IUPUI campus, where then-New York Jets coach Herm Edwards famously turned the tables on those of us who get paid to critique NFL coaches by critiquing our performance with some good-natured ribbing. (He did not remind us, much to my disappointment, that “you play … to win … the game.”)

But with it being my first trip away from 6-week-old Madison, and with Paula no having to handle parenting duties solo, well, my enthusiasm for the trip wasn’t where it normally was. It didn’t help when Kent informed me that he missed his son, a senior, playing in the Arizona state high school boys basketball tournament Thursday night – a game that his team lost, ending his career. The capper was a text he received later in the night: “I wanted to win one more game so you could see me play again.”

Ouch.

The next morning, I got some breaking – and heartbreaking – news of my own: That while I was gone, Madison had rolled over for the first time. Luckily, Paula just happened to have our Flip video camera running to capture the momentous (and surprisingly early) occasion. (The video can be found on my Facebook page.)

While some veteran dads trumpeted the positives of the trip away from a baby (“You can catch up on sleep!”) I couldn’t quite buy in. This is a must-cover event in the NFL, but I found myself spending as much time trying to get my new webcam working so I could Skype with Paula and Madison as I spent shooting my videos for ESPNMilwaukee.com and ESPNMadison.com. (A Skype newbie, I have to admit it’s one of the coolest inventions ever, somewhere behind fire, the wheel and the iPod.)

Still, as impressive as video conferencing with a 6-week-old might be, nothing beats the real thing, so when I got home tonight, well, let’s just say I didn’t watch much of the Winter Olympics’ closing ceremonies. Even when Madison was fussing, it was better than anything that happened in Indianapolis.

I have been a loyal Time Warner Cable subscriber in Green Bay for 10 years now, but they don’t carry my new favorite channel.

No, I’m not talking about the NFL Network. I’m on record blaming the league and it’s inflated opinion of its network for the fact that I can’t get it at home.

No, my new favorite channel isn’t available from anyone – not DirecTV, not Dish Network, not with the rabbit ears and some tin foil – because it’s a closed-circuit broadcast that’s only on in my house: The video monitor of Madison in her crib.

The official product name is the Summer Infant Complete Coverage Color Video Monitor Set, and with the possible exception of the iPod, it is the coolest thing I’ve ever bought. Not only does it come with a 7-inch LCD video screen (which sits on the nightstand on Paula’s side of the bed) and a 1.8-inch handheld unit (to keep an eye on your little one when you’re on the go), but with the help of a $30 cable I bought at Best Buy, I can plug the handheld unit into one of the ports on any of our TVs around the house and watch Madison in all her snoring full-screen glory (she’s currently on the 40-inch Samsung in my office).

Honestly, it’s the best $243.35 I’ve spent of all my baby purchases. Not only do I get a clear picture and very good audio, but I can turn out all the lights in Madison’s room and the camera goes into night vision mode, and I can see her just as clearly as if the lights were on.

But as impressed as I have been, the monitor also got me wondering: What did our parents do to keep an eye on us? What did moms and dads even 10, 15 years ago do? I know the audio monitor has been around for awhile, but you dads with older kids, what did you do? Just go in and check on your little one periodically? Never stray far from the baby’s room?

I will confess that there is one inherent drawback to the video monitor: I find myself squandering valuable time I could spend sleeping watching Madison sleep instead. Like, well, tonight.

Maybe I can start TiVoing these episodes and watching them later.

First, full disclosure: I am, embarrassingly, prone to crying.

At my wedding, my groomsmen wagered on how many times I would cry during the ceremony (I believe the over-under was 10). On the Packers beat, I’ve developed a reputation with coach Mike McCarthy for being the sensitive one. (By now, you’ve probably heard the story about Brett Favre, on his way back to the airport following his March 6, 2008 retirement press conference, remarking that it was too bad that I’d missed it. “He would’ve liked all the crying,” he told Packers PR director Jeff Blumb.)

So as I watched the aftermath of Super Bowl XLIV with my soon-to-be month-old daughter, Madison, in my arms, I couldn’t help but tear up as I watched MVP Drew Brees with his year-old son, Baylen, in his arms. As the confetti fell onto the Sun Life Stadium turf, there was the New Orleans Saints quarterback, tears in his eyes, holding his son and taking it all in.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one struck by the moment.

David Letterman, who had Brees on The Late Show on Monday night, gushed about watching Brees and his son – going so far as to say that seeing father and son together like that made it OK that Letterman’s team, the Indianapolis Colts, had lost the game. Then on Wednesday, my issue of Sports Illustrated arrived, with Brees, his wife Brittany and Baylen on the cover.

But what struck me most was the fact that Baylen’s mom and dad had the wherewithal to think ahead and put noise-canceling headphones on Baylen, to protect his little ears from the stadium noise.

As Craig Karmazin and I talked about this morning on Green & Gold Today, there was a lot of speculation on the Internet whether Baylen, who was born Jan. 15, 2009 – his dad’s 30^th birthday – suffered from some sort of developmental disability after seeing the headphones. Turns out, his parents are just smart.

During his MVP press conference on Monday morning, Brees said the headphones are standard operating procedure.

“He wears them for all the games,” Brees explained. “I credit Brittany for that.”

He also talked about what it meant to him to share the moment with Baylen.

“It’s something I’ve dreamed about since I was 7 years old,” Brees said. “To win a championship and to share it with my son, it’s only his first year of life, (so) he’ll never remember that moment, but it’s something I’ve always dreamed of.”

As a new dad, that moment struck a chord with me. And the fact that Baylen couldn’t hear through his headphones what his dad was whispering in his ear – “I just told him I loved him,” Brees said later – spoke volumes.

Why? Because that, to me, is what being a dad is all about: It’s not about your words, it’s about your actions. And as sweet as it was for Brees to be whispering I love yous in Baylen’s ear during the post-game euphoria, it was one smart, simple act that should have reminded all of us dads how important it is to always be thinking about what’s best for our little ones.

I’m starting to get the hang of this diapering thing. But my first few solo changes were, well, crappy.

Two of my more veteran dad friends – The D-List’s Drew Olson of OnMilwaukee.com and Wilde groomsman Chris Jenkins of the Associated Press – had told me before Madison’s arrival that I would become an expert at the diapering process in no time. Drew predicted I’d be able to change her diaper one-handed, half-asleep, while watching SportsCenter and eating a sandwich. Chris, after spending a significant portion of his career on the NASCAR beat for USA Today, claimed that I’d have the efficiency of a Sprint Cup pit crew.

Well, I’m not there yet. But I’ve come a fair distance since my initial attempts.

The first one was at St. Vincent Hospital after the nurses had handle diaper duty the first two days. I was slow and inept, and by the end of my pathetic attempt, both Madison and I were in tears after she went into full-on meltdown mode before I’d Velcroed her hip straps. When I finally got her calmed down, I was in tears – not all that unusual given my high sappiness quotient – because I felt so bad about the traumatic experience I’d just put my three-day-old daughter through.

Things didn’t get much better when we got home. The first time I tried to change Madison without Paula’s supervision, I put the diaper on backwards. Fortunately, I was fast asleep when Paula discovered the gaffe the next morning.

But the worst-case scenario struck a few nights later, after I’d thought I was getting the hang of things – only to be reminded how far I still had to go by receiving the 3P Treatment (pooped on, peed on, puked on).

Madison had been having issues with constipation (someday, she will be less than thrilled to learn that her dad blogged about that fact, although I’m sure I will embarrass her in much worse ways in the future) and finally delivered the goods. (It’s amazing how excited parents can get about poop.)

As I was changing her, she decided she wasn’t done – which would have been fine had my hand not been in the line of fire, having just finished a wiping. That was quickly followed by a stream of urine, which I’m told was prompted by her being a bit chilly, even though she was being changed in front of the fireplace, her preferred location. And she capped it off my spitting up roughly 1/3 of the bottle I’d fed her shortly before her changing.

It was a watershed moment in my just-beginning fatherhood career.

On the bright side, things have gotten better since. My dexterity has improved. The changes are taking less and less time. There’s been limited spillage and spraying. And little or no crying.

But the one-handed, sandwich-eating, jack-man pit crew moves still feel a long ways off.

I hope you’ll indulge me while I brag about my wife for a moment.

You see, I have long teased Paula for falling for the ultimate bait-and-switch. When we went out on our first date, on Dec. 22, 2005, I was, well, thin. Absurdly thin. I’d gone through a rough breakup that fall, and having no appetite in the aftermath, I’d lost a ridiculous 32 pounds in six weeks, taking me from a pudgy 205 pounds to a svelte 173.

She is still trying to figure out what happened to that guy. I tell her, “I ate him.”

The weight slowly returned over the next few years, and in the wake of my training-camp abdominal surgery and a five-day hospital stay, my doctor-ordered six-week disbarment from the gym – not to mention the rediscovery of Zesty’s frozen custard – had me at 210 pounds upon Madison’s arrival. I’d like to chalk it up to husbandly pregnancy sympathy weight, but in reality, it was simply typical sportswriter diet and laziness with getting back into the workout rhythm.

She has never complained, never made me feel bad about my appearance (although I do a decent job of that on my own) and never demanded a refund for the bait-and-switch.

Madison’s been home for a week now, and while my friend Chris Jenkins of the Associated Press gave me a dismissive “Good luck with that” about re-committing to my workout schedule after her arrival, I’ve worked out five of the seven days since her “move-in” day. Because Paula had a C-section, she’s banned from working out for now – although she plans on lobbying her doc at her appointment this week to let her at least use the elliptical machine – and the smart money is on her getting back to her pre-pregnancy weight (she already looks phenomenal) before I get remotely close to the version she thought she was getting when she met me.

I’m incredibly blessed to have a happy, healthy Madison by my side on the night shift as I type this. But I hope everyone is as lucky as Madison and I are to have someone as incredible as Paula as our mom and wife, respectively. She might’ve gotten bait-and-switched, but I got the best of the deal by far.

I have never been an early-to-bed guy. It comes with the sportswriting gig, I guess. Freed from newspaper deadlines now that I’m with ESPNMilwaukee.com and ESPNMadison.com, I wrote deep into the night – and, after the Packers’ Dec. 20 game at Pittsburgh, right up until it was time to leave for the airport at 4 a.m. EST for my 6 a.m. Midwest Airlines flight – after many a game this season.

So when we brought Madison home on Saturday, it was a no-brainer that Paula – who, let’s be honest, did all the work – should go to bed and I should stay up with Madison on the overnight shift.

After zonking out during Saturday Night Live, I woke up at 1:30 to start my watch. Truth be told, I was concerned that I’d be overmatched on my own, and the combination of that anxiety, the adrenaline of being a new dad at home with the little one for her first night and the paternal instinct that wasn’t letting me put her down, it had the makings of a long night.

It wound up being the best night of my life.

I didn’t wind up being as overmatched as I’d feared, and Madison turned out to be less scary of a one-on-one matchup than I expected. After her first feeding, I got her back to sleep by singing Mat Kearney’s “All I Have” while rocking her in the glider in her room. As off-key as my rendition might have been – as well as my other attempts at songs from Kearney’s album, “City of Black & White” – I felt an incredible amount of pride that the singing actually worked.

Unable to sleep myself, I was left to watch the brutal sea of infomercials that air at 3 a.m. – the Nautilus Mobia, which is marketed as a combination treadmill/elliptical/stairclimber and could be mine for the low, low bargain price of $2,000;a variety of ab machines (the Ab Roller, the Ab Rocker, the Ab Circle Pro);  the Magic Bullet, which I actually already have (despite Paula’s best efforts to get rid of it); and what can most accurately be described as get-rich-quick schemes that, apparently, enough people are falling for to keep them on the air.

My friends Drew Olson and KB have both suggested that, as I work more Madison overnights, I’ll become a fan of English Premier League soccer, since live broadcasts of games are so popular in that timeslot. But on our opening night together, Madison and I spent 4 a.m. until 7 a.m. – when Mom got up – watching old Law & Order reruns on TNT. And they’ve never been more arresting.

Since then, our nights together have developed a routine. I get a little bit of work done with her asleep on my shoulder and my laptop propped up on my knees. We catch up on the library of DVDs (many of which were unopened) that I’ve never had time to watch. And we read – Goodnight Moon, Guess How Much I Love You, and last night’s selection, Tim Layden’s story on Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings in this week’s Sports Illustrated. (Just like Tom Selleck in Three Men and a Baby.)

Eventually, she’ll sleep through the night instead of in two- to four-hour increments – or so I’m told. And I’m sure I’ll need that sleep, especially when the 2010 Packers season kicks off and my workload increases significantly. But for now, I am having the time of my life, just me and my little night owl.