One of the first things I've noticed as a new father is how sensitive I
am again to time passing. After graduating college, my has not been
measured in discrete chunks of time like semesters, nor have there been
regular events like summer/fall/spring breaks to look forward to as a
break in my schedule. Time was very continuous, between work and the
occasional trip or vacation to punctuate the year. Since we learned
we'd be parents, its been back to counting down the days to one
milestone or another. First, it was the trimesters during pregnancy,
then the agonizingly slow march to the actual delivery day. Now, every
month has its little milestones. By the second month, Nicholas was able
to follow objects, and recognize voices. In the third month, he's
learned to squeal in delight, "converse" and respond with baby
babble. Soon, he should be sleeping through the night, which will be a
more a welcome relief for Staci than for me, believe it or not.
Besides these developmental milestones, clearly the biggest change is
that his health and welfare are our foremost concern. While I may want
to squeeze in an hour here or there blogging, pokig at some code or
project, or simply playing a game of FIFA, its been hard to come by
those hours without sacrificing a lot of sleep. And its no joke how
much sleep you are deprived of during the first three months. The first
month was definitely the worst, but you get used to functioning with
less sleep, or going to bed earlier. For me, midnight or 1 AM used to
be the norm, but just last night we were all in bed at 10 p.m. It was a
good night.
The first 3 months haven't been all that hard or a very big adjustment,
since our main job is to keep Nicholas fed, safe, and stimulated. There
must also be an evolutionary reason for pushing the harder parenting
years to when children become teenagers. I'm enjoying being a dad, and
I"m looking forward to all the new experiences we'll share as a family
in the coming years.
Other things I've learned as a new dad:
- Changing diapers isn't as hard or messy as I thought it would be, but
he hasn't gotten to a real squirmy phase either.
- LIttle babies can make some big noises.
- You have to be pretty creative to keep them entertained, the funny
face or noise that worked yesterday probably won't be as entertaining
tomorrow.
- Its nearly impossible to stop grandmothers from buying new toys and
outfits for him.