What I’ve Learned in My First Year Being a Dad

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I can’t believe that it has already been almost a year since our little 5lb 2oz. bundle of joy was born!  Looking back over this past year, I realized that I have learned some things, as I’m sure any parent (new or old) would.  Of course, I thought I would share those with the world, so here goes – in no particular order:

1. Your sleep will never be the same.  I may have a pattern here as a couple of these might have to do with sleep!  Regardless of how your baby sleeps, sleep won’t be the same – and actually this goes both ways.  I have gotten full nights of sleep on occasion only to wake up feeling worse than I did before.  On other occasions, I’ve gotten a 10 minute nape in the recliner and felt the best I ever have!  On those occasions that your baby does sleep through the night, you will still wake up wondering when your baby is going to wake up!
2. Your house will never be the same.  Just like your sleep will never be the same, your house will never be the same.  There will be baby stuff everywhere – in every room!  Then as they get older, there will be toys everywhere – all the time! If you like your sleep and like a clean house, maybe having a baby isn’t the thing for you!  Just something to consider!
3. Everyone has an opinion.  Now, I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing.  I will say I have heard so many variations on how to get your baby to sleep, what and when you should feed baby, how you should bathe her, and how you should burp her that it’s a wonder that any of us made it past infancy.  Bottom line – every baby is different; what works for someone else, may or may not work for your baby.  You have to find what works for you.
4. Babies are not logical.  I like to think that I’m a rather logical person.  If it’s raining, you get out of the rain.  If something hurts, you don’t do that again. If you are hungry, you eat.  If you are sleepy,  you sleep.  Babies are not like this.  Obviously, there are things they have to learn and be taught and I understand that.  However, I quickly learned there are things such as “overstimulated” and “overtired”.  If you are a parent, you understand this.  I guess it essentially equates to a baby not being able to turn her brain off.  I think if a baby is sleepy she should sleep – hungry, they should eat.  Not always so!
5. Changing diapers does NOT get easier.  This may be something known to everyone else.  I’ll admit had I thought about this logically, I would have seen this coming.  Before our daughter was born, I had never changed a diaper – ever.  After the first, oh, ten or so, I thought I was a pro.  Then, she started squirming and rolling over!  Yeah, things just got interesting.
6. Don’t get used to anything.  I realize that seems vague.  Lemme put it this way – just when you think you got the little boogers figured out – they go and change!  Just when you think you’ve fallen into a pattern of baby taking a nap for an hour and a half, she wakes up after 45 minutes or decides to sleep for 3 hours that day.  Constantly changing – so stay on  your toes!
7. There are things you were probably told you needed that you find out you really didn’t!  We thought we just had to have Dreft detergent – it smelled good, it was recommended for the baby’s clothes – yeah, clothes didn’t come out smelling like the detergent!  We went and got us some good old free & clear ALL.  Or just use your favorite free & clear detergent.  This could even include certain pacifiers or butt creams – whatever it may be – you are gonna have to figure out what it is  you like/want and go with it.  So don’t buy cases of anything until you know your little one likes it!
8. Forget your own expectations.  I never will forget as soon as we got home with our daughter, I went and wheeled the bassinet we had just bought, I had just put together, into the living room for her to sleep in.  Every baby needs a bassinet right?  Well, we quickly found out that she did not like sleeping in it.  Then, learned she did not like being flat of her back.  She didn’t sleep in the bassinet till she was probably 3 months old.  Where did she sleep the rest of the time?  Her swing.  We’d move that thing all over the house and into our bedroom at night.  So just because you bought it, put it together and put the frilliest comforter in it – she  may not sleep in it for a while – or ever.
9. Enjoy the ride; it will all be over soon enough.  I realize this is similar to #5, but when you are going through having to wake your little one up every 2 hours to feed her or she’s not sleeping because of teething – or better yet you aren’t sleeping because she’s teething, an expression comes to mind – this too shall pass.  It’s gonna seem horrible while you are going through it, but pretty soon you are gonna look back and it’s over.  You may be on to something else new and more challenging, but hey, at least the other thing is gone, right?  Liz and I don’t really remember feeding Maddy every 2 hours for the first month or so – talk about sleep deprived, but we made it through it.
10. It is absolutely the best thing I’ve ever done.  I realize that I did not do much.  My wife is the one that went through 9 months of carrying her, taking shots twice a day and countless other meds and procedures just to get her here, not to mention the c-section – but of all the things I’ve done in my jobs, schooling, or personal life – being a dad is honestly the best thing I’ve ever done.  There are days you want to pull your hair out, throw your hands up and run around the house screaming – but then that little baby will laugh or smile at you and you instantly forget how tired and how frustrated you are! I have found that I love my wife more than ever and she never ceases to amaze me with her strength.  It has truly brought us closer has husband and wife.  Neither of us thought we could love something or someone like we do our little girl.  Definitely, the best thing I’ve ever done!

So, there you have it.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Story of Us…MoMo Twins and Heartache Yet Again

This is the continuing story of “The Story of Us” – the road that my wife and I faced in our infertility battle and road to have our daughter. If you’d like to read past stories, please visit the link at the top of my page.

It was around March of 2009, Liz and I had just found out that we were pregnant with twins. Then quickly found out that “Baby B” was not doing well – this baby’s heartbeat was only around 69 beats per minute. Doctors want to see it at least over 100. This was only part of our worries however – yes, we were concerned about how we’d afford double diapers, formula and double everything, but that was not the main concern. We had learned that our twins were what were called “momo twins”. Basically, they could touch each other while they were in my wife’s belly! This isn’t how it always happens. Being this way brings it’s own complications. The twins cords could get wrapped around each other’s necks more easily, cord compression was possible, as well as twin-twin transfusion syndrome – as always I had read too much.

We focused on getting baby B’s heart rate up. Of course, there was nothing we could physically do to improve this – but we prayed. We dreamed of what it would be like to have twins. We loved the idea while everyone around us thought we were absolutely crazy. I’ll admit, I was panicking a bit because of the financial side of it, but we would make it work. Liz and I have always been this way – any difficult situation we know we’ll make it through. We know God will first see us through, but we know He will give us the wisdom, as well, to figure it out. We believed he would do the same in this situation.

However, this pregnancy would end just as the previous two had. Liz began having complications and called her doctor. They told her to come in – again, they could not find either heartbeat. I think at this point we were really beginning to think this just isn’t going to happen for us. We could not believe this was happening again. We thought we had found the answers with removing the septum – that this was the problem for Liz, but apparently not! Unfortunately, Liz now faced a difficult decision. In the next few days, Liz would have a D&C to remove the babies from her body. This was absolutely one of the hardest days for us – driving to the doctor’s office, knowing what we were going in for.

To this day, we still talk about the twins – what they would have been like, what it would have been like to have twins. Losing any pregnancy was bad enough, but for some reason that left a deeper mark.

Soon, Liz and I would be making a big move – could things turn around then?

Stop and Smell the Stinky Diapers!

Our little girl recently turned 9 months old.  Yes, as any parent, we are as proud as we can be and also can’t believe where the time has gone.  With this milestone comes questions – is she crawling, how many teeth does she have, is she trying to walk yet, when is she gonna get any hair.  I understand there are certain milestones that a 9 month old should be meeting due to developmental abilities and if not that would be a cause for concern.  All of this has been discussed with her pediatrician, and she is fine – so no worries there.

Today, though, I ran into someone that knows my wife and I – and of course it lead into that discussion of how old is she and is she walking yet, etc. – and she proceeds to tell me how her child was walking at 8 1/2 months old.  I too have been in on the walking “betting” with our daughter saying that she would be walking by Christmas, so as you’ll see the context of my blog will also be directed at myself as well.

I realized something after the conversation with the nice lady. We – parents, society – are obsessed with our kids growing up and doing so quickly!  I’m as guilty as the rest.  When we first brought Maddy home, I remember saying “I can’t wait until she can smile or laugh…”.  I had to stop myself and enjoy what she could do whether it was just grunt or poot right then!  Parents get so worried about their babies sleeping through the night, eating solid food, and when they will crawl or walk – we don’t focus on what they are doing at them moment.  We’re always looking ahead to tomorrow – trying to grow them up too fast.  And don’t even get me started on what happens once they are older – 5 year olds with cell phones, the clothes…wait, I said I wasn’t gonna start!

So the next time someone asks you if you child is doing this or that yet – say nope, but this is what she IS doing, and I’m loving every minute of it!

Not the Mama, Not the Mama!

Cover of Mr. Mom

Anybody remember that show that came on maybe in the early ’90′s called Dinosaurs? It was actually this family of dinosaurs that had lives like humans.  I remember this one scene where the “kid” was on the dad’s back with a pot, hitting him on the head repeatedly, screaming – “Not the mama, not the mama!”.

Since the birth of our daughter back in February, I’ve seen that image in my head on more than one occasion.  Why, you may ask?  Well, I’m pretty much a stay at home dad.  My wife works outside of the home at a full time job; I am a youth minister at a church and am in school as well.  However, with my job, I am able to work from home, so I am also able to stay home and take care of our daughter.

Before she was born, I remember people asking who would take care of her after my wife would go back to work.  My wife would point to me.  Reactions would be mixed.  Some would laugh; some would say wonderful; some would just give you this look.  I have to admit that I wondered how it would work.  I will say, for the record, that it has worked out great – I’ve had a few crazy days, but that’s to be expected, right?!

What I didn’t expect was as time went on some of the comments that I would hear.  People have gotten used to seeing me pushing our little girl in her stroller over to the bank to see her mom, or over to the store to get a snack.  Two comments in particular have stood out – one came while I was going to the store one day.  A lady turned to a gentleman in line as I walked by and said, “you wouldn’t see many dad’s that would do that.”  Now, I probably should just take that as a compliment and move on.  My question is – why not?  Why wouldn’t more dad’s do what I do?  I don’t see what I’m doing as something out of the ordinary or anything like that.  I see it as something in our family that right now this is our situation and this is what we do.  This is our daughter, this is my daughter and I’m supposed to take care of her too.  I know there are many other stay at home dads out there that do what I do every day so I don’t see the “big deal” I suppose.

The second comment was by a little old lady – and I didn’t even really hear all of it.  The basic effect of it was she was telling someone as I walked by hold my daughter that, “I had been as much of a mom as…” and that was all I heard.  What’s that even mean?  I’m not her mom!  Her mom is her mom.  Does she say that because I’ve changed diapers and feed  her and carried her around?  I am her dad – I have a responsibility in this too.

Why do people generally assume that dads don’t do anything with their children?  And if they do they are considered a Mr. Mom?  Why can’t they just be a dad?  Maybe I am wrong or maybe I just have a crazy, twisted view of things – what are your thoughts?