Fatherhood, New

I have been asked several times in several different forms, yet the underlying question is always the same, "how is being a new father"? I find myself unable to properly quantify the answer to that question in any which gives the question justice. However, I am feel a need to try.

The most basic answer to the question is, different. However, that answer lacks substance and quantification. Different by itself doesn't indicate a good or bad connotation. Different can be read good or bad based completely upon the recipients perspective or based on the inflection or method of presentation while it is being spoken. However, different by itself is grossly inadequate as an answer. Anyone who has an imagination could properly infer that going to from a married couple to being married with children will be significantly different. But if that person is not already a parent, the chances of their perception of the amount of different in multiple situations may likely be blown out of proportion.

I have come to the conclusion that being a father of an infant is surprisingly simple. The rules are pretty straight forward; support your wife, cooperate with her every request and/or demand, continue to pull an income, and guess, guess, and guess some more as to what the crying baby wants. Sure, I guess I'm glossing over somethings, but they seemed obvious to me. For example, free time is not yours anymore. Free time is daddy/baby time, or chores time, or mommy/daddy time or exercise time. It has become pretty few and far between that any block of time has been expectantly devoted to my projects. But that is the way it is supposed to be, isn't it? I still manage to find time to watch movies and TV. But this time is typically spent multitasking on demand.

Don't hear me wrong. I am still able to allocate time to play D&D weekly. I would think that should I find the freedom to play hockey, if I wasn't in an injury avoidance mindset right now. Angel & I still find the time to make a periodic visit to Summits. But generally, life has continued to move forward more or less as it did BFC (Before First Child).

One of the largest expectations of change was the anticipation of this pressure of doing things "right" for the baby, which felt so overwhelming. So far, I can't say that this pressure has come to fruition. The requirements for caring for the child have been minimal. Hold them, rock them, walk them, diaper them, clothe them, feed them, decipher cries, wash, rinse, repeat. Even trips out to public haven't much changed. Sure, we may need a stroller sometimes, we have this infant car seat to keep hold of everywhere, but the act of doing the standard day-to-day things really hasn't changed drastically, if anything, the changes have been subtle.

The most drastic and noteworthy things to discuss would be our sleeping habits. Suddenly, 9 AM has become about standard for wake-up. This is Cat's fault most of the time, but it does have a favorable side effect; AM workouts instead of waiting until after work. Additionally, the 0-Dark-30 wake-ups are not so fun. Thankfully, we're just about the point where we're down to one or two wake-ups nightly instead of the every-two-hours schedule. However, this wasn't an issue that greatly effected me much because Angel buffered me from them (oh, what an angel she was!). At one point, there was the "I don't wanna sleep anymore" nightly fight. Mommy said, screw it, you figure it out and went to sleep for this one. I would have to spend somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour and a half cycling between walking, rocking, cooing, and bouncing in multiple positions trying to find what she wanted. Granted, this was after we knew she had a full belly and a clean diaper. This would happen just about nightly as well. But it didn't and doesn't last forever. Ironically, typically this was ended with a feeding. I gotta say, it must be nice to fall asleep at the dinner table. And I'll refrain on commenting about the jealousy of what her dinner table looks like.

Anyway, a trend does seem to be evolving. Once you think that you have things figured out, the kid will find a way to throw you a curve ball you were not expecting. However, at this point, the curve balls don't seem all that bad in comparison to the ones which I know to expect. I hear verbal communication changes things significantly. By the way, crying is bad, but once they learn to scream, you have a whole new set of issues on your hands. Therefore, I'm learning a whole new definition to flexibility.

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