For those who are also Facebook friends, you'll be familiar with most of this post, so bear with me. As I've said before, I don't know much about babies. And, as I suspect it is with most dads, I'm sort of winging this whole Fatherhood thing. It's been a learn as I go experience.
Being a planner by nature and vocation, "flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants" is completely divergent from my normal modus operandi. I do believe that change is good and that you never stop learning - so I'm trying to relish 'living in the moment' and not spending my time planning my (our) next step. At least as much as I am able.
That said, my mind tends to wander from the moment as I sit there in the dark at 2am, holding a baby in one arm and a bottle in the other. I'm not ashamed to admit that sleep deprivation has led that mental wandering to some pretty freaking weird places. Weird in a 'Willy Wonka' kind of way...not weird in a 'lock you up and throw away the key' way.
Hands down, the best place it's led me though, is in finding ways to articulate the humor I find in babies and parenthood. In the morning, after I've managed to drive to work (really not sure how I managed that some days), I'd post my baby observations on Facebook. I received a lot of positive feedback (which might be a measure of my friends and not the quality of my posts) - so I thought I'd share them here.
We'll see how many I get to by the time she graduates. My creativity has dried up somewhat since Aili has started to sleep longer (which, of course, means so am I). Who says sleep deprivation is all bad?
Here's a few I've come up with so far...
Baby observation #1: (March 29) Contrary to popular opinion (or at least mine up until a week ago), newborns don't just sleep, eat and evacuate. They play games too. It seems their favorite is "let's see how many times in a row I can soil the diaper daddy just put on me". Being a proud poppa, I'll boast that my daughter is a champ at this game.
Baby observation #2: (March 30)There needs to be a serious re-interpretation of the phrase "I slept like a baby".
Baby observation #3: (April 2) Babies are incredibly patient. For instance, they will spend ALL day being sweet, quiet, cooing gently - dare I say even feigning peaceful sleep - lulling those around them into a false sense of well being...waiting for the absolute perfect moment (say, 45 seconds after parental units shut off the light and crawl into bed) to release the hounds. They are not to be underestimated.
Baby observation #4: (April 4) Infants have the power to bend space & time.
Over the last 2 weeks I have observed a notable increase in the effect of inertia. It seems to take herculean effort to stand up and walk down the hall, tasks seem to take forever and everyone appears to live in fast forward.
Time has - concurrently - seemed to increase (as in - how the heck is she 2 weeks old already?) and slowed down (as in - oh my god how can it still be only 2pm?). Given the timing of such changes to the laws of physics, I can only assume my child is a reincarnation of the Time Lord, Dr. Who. Well, that, or I'm just tired.
Baby observation #5: (April 5) If my child is any indication, the solution to the current economic malaise is nipple flow. Yes...I just typed "nipple flow". (Bet you never thought you'd see ME type those words.)
Whether it be the natural variety or the plastic variety, apparently more is better. It seems more = less frustration/gas = more sleep for baby = more sleep for parental units = happier more alert parental units = greater parental unit job performance = bigger raise = more spending money = more private sector economic stimulus = greater GDP.
Therefore more nipple flow = greater GDP. My money is on the candidate that adopts this as his platform to easily win the White House.
Baby observation #6: (April 9) There is nothing that feels better than quietly rocking in the lazy-boy with your infant fast asleep on your chest....especially once you've recovered from the well aimed 2am head butt to the throat.
Baby observation #7: (April 9) Not all baby bottles are up to the whole 'boil to disinfect' thing. Especially the ones with "do not boil" written on the side in fine print.
Baby observation #8.5: (April 18) You know what's really fun? Midnight diaper blowouts. And I mean that in the most "not really fun" way possible. Good thing she's so freaking cute.
Baby observation #9: (April 23) If any of you have school age children that need to interview someone on what life was like in the past, I suggest you have them do this: Hand a baby to someone who is ‘chronologically gifted’ and start writing/recording.
Soon they’ll hear gems like “In our day we didn’t have these fancy shmancy diapers that change color when they’re wet….NO! We wrapped babies in little towels. And when they pooped…we dunked ‘em in a bucket…baby and all!”, or “Back in our day we didn’t have these ‘pack-n-plays’ to sleep in when we travelled….NO! we laid them down in a dresser drawer…and if they cried – we shut it!”. I'm sure they'll get an A+.
Baby observation #9.5: (April 26) "To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub.".....Did Shakespeare have an infant?
