Musings From a New Dad {guest post}

My little girl is about to hit the big number three tomorrow. I won’t lie to you nice people, it’s a pretty big deal over here. Three. THREE! I mean, granted, we are just dealing with weeks here, but seriously, three weeks is a really long time when you’re talking firstborn children. While the internet did its best to prepare me and my wife for what to expect, there were some decent curve balls that threw us for a loop. For example…

1. The (no) sleep thing. I know, I know – the internet and friends told us a million times about how sleep deprived we would get after our daughter was born – what it did not tell us was when this would happen. I thought Jess and I would start this parenting gig with a full sleep battery, ready to rock our little girl to sleep all night long. This request was not acknowledged. The ‘birth-day’ (which needs a much more menacing title) started with Jess’ induction at 6:30 a.m. Really though, we were up and ready to go at 3 a.m. My daughter was born at 11:27 p.m. the same day – so I officially became a dad after being awake for nearly 21 hours. By the time I finally fell asleep (really it was like a 10-minute nap) after she was born, the sun was up and shining. That was three weeks ago and she still definitely has her days and nights confused. I’m tired. I’m very, very tired.

2. Funny looking babies. We were told all sorts of things about how… different… our girl could look when she was born: cone-heads, “fur” all over, cheese-like stuff all over her skin, goo, blood, poop, the whole gambit. but we weren’t told she could be cross-eyed. Reeeeeeally cross-eyed. It’s pretty funny now (and her eyes did fix themselves nicely), but seeing two brand new eyes looking in two totally different directions was kind of odd. I’d show you a picture of her, minutes after she was born, with crazy crossed eyes, but I don’t want to freak you out. Just trust me that your precious newborn can look sort of creepy when her eyes aren’t functioning quite right yet.

3. Swaddling. Jess and I had the opportunity to go to several classes about parenting and see all sorts of neat videos about how to raise a newborn those first few weeks/months. One of several things we learned was how to swaddle. For those of you who don’t know, swaddling is this cool thing where you wrap your little one into a blanket like a burrito where they can’t move/flail/freak out/get cold/etc. It simulates the womb and makes the munchkin comfortable. I’ll just toot my own horn here, but I basically rocked at the swaddling the dolls in the classes. I was a swaddling champ, but that was before I tried wrapping up my feisty newborn. Whoever invented swaddling has not met my little Gracie. Not even the hospital nurses could swaddle her well enough to keep her contained for more than a few minutes. We’ve even tried those cool zippered swaddles, but she flails so much that she practically rolled over in it. We may try them again once she gets a little bigger, but for right now she sleeps with her cute little arms and legs flailing about.

4. Poop. This one is entirely for Jess. During the pregnancy I made peace with the fact that my little sprite would, at some point, poop on me. Several times. I also assumed that the aforementioned poop would get everywhere: walls, floor, clothing, my face, the dog, etc. Jess did not believe me. Jess is silly. After Gracie pooped on my lovely wife’s hands, arm, and clothes one day, she became a believer in the power of the poop. Then, the next day our adorable baby girl not only pooped all over her again, but this time it busted out of the diaper and soaked through a blanket, Jess’s pants, and onto the couch. Gracie just smiled after that blowout. Jess, on the other hand, was not smiling. Luckily, my body and clothes have managed to stay poop free.

Hopefully life won’t toss any more curve balls our way (hope springs eternal), but so far our little T-rex has been worth every stinky, wailing, silly-eyed, sleep-deprived, adorable moment.