Well, we made it through the first month! OK, technically, we've made it through the first four weeks, but it still feels like a landmark worth acknowledging.
It also seems like the perfect time to point out that there are a few things nobody tells you about being the parent of a newborn.
1. Being at bedside while your wife goes through labor, is like watching one of those unbelievably gory death scenes in Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. Only, there are no special effects, and it's not cool to drink beer in hospital like it is in front of the TV at home.
2. Choosing to go through labor without a Doula is like volunteering to take a walking safari through lion country without a guide or a shotgun. Get a Doula!!!
3. When you all get home from hospital, you have to hide the fact that you're feeling less certain about what to do next than you were when you last sat down to take an examination in applied mathematics.
4. To begin with, you will be amazed that you can buy 50 diapers at once. Soon, you will wonder why you can't buy them in packs of 1000.
5. 'The books' say you will eventually recognize the different signals a baby is trying to send with his crying. To begin with, you will have no idea what is going on and endlessly cycle through attempted feeding, diaper inspection and/or changing, jiggling, shushing and swaddling in a desperate attempt to calm him. Of course, you will always try the wrong thing first and by the time you get it right, baby will have started crying for a different reason.
6. After nine months of abstaining from sushi and alcohol, mummy will deservedly chow down on both (especially her fave, spicy tuna) with gusto. Shortly thereafter, baby will spend 24 hours projectile puking and pooping the self same spicyness.
7. On a related note, even happy babies don't understand concepts such as "timing" or "later". They are as likely to poop into a new diaper one second after you've changed the dirty one, as they are to wait one hour. In fact, they may well poop on your hands while you are in the act of changing the last diaper.
8. Men: As you stare at your blood-shot eyes in the bathroom mirror every morning after you've gone back to work, bemoaning having been woken up every three hours, mum will likely declare: "I slept well, didn't you?"
9. Those cute 'newborn' clothes costing $19 per piece that you cooed over and carefully picked out at Baby Gap...your baby will outgrow them in the first week.
10. After a couple of weeks of sleep deprivation, you may lose the ability to speak coherently. Friends will stare at you in pity as you say things like: "I'm going to put the car on the bike rack."
And finally, no-one will ever be able to aptly describe how wonderful it feels to have your child snoozing on your chest at the end of a long day!
11. You'll start using babytalk like "poop".
12. That this is the easiest period.
Posted by: ian | May 04, 2009 at 11:44 AM
Re: 12. A kind colleague did tell me the other day. "You want 8 hours sleep? You'll have to wait until he's 17 for that." I hope you're both wrong!
Posted by: David McCulloch | May 04, 2009 at 08:15 PM
Re: 2. Didn't you volunteer to go on a walking safari in lion country rather than go to the World Cup in 2006?
Posted by: ian | May 05, 2009 at 02:08 AM
Fair point. But our guides did carry sticks.
Posted by: David McCulloch | May 05, 2009 at 10:19 PM
Feeding blind people to the lions to protect yourself? Ingenious.
Posted by: ian | May 06, 2009 at 01:55 AM
I remember sitting in bed with Driana at 4am one morning when Fin was awake next door (about 6 weeks old), where we both agreed that we wanted our old lives back...
Now he has his own opinions and everything and it's more of a bloomin nightmare but at least he's learning to sleep in at weekends...
It's all great tho isn't it?
(and PS - I just cycled over the Pyrenees without getting in the van once - 5 mountains in 3 days...very hard work and extremely rewarding...just like parenthood, altho a bit more phsyical!)
Posted by: Matt | May 11, 2009 at 12:09 PM
Outstanding effort, Matt (both on parenting Fin and scaling the Pyrenees!) Send me your new address again, would you? I'll send you that cheque...who do I make it out to?
Posted by: David McCulloch | May 12, 2009 at 08:41 PM
Was brilliant fun mate (both cycling and parenting) but no need to send a cheque..simply click here:
http://www.justgiving.com/matt-sore-backside-take2-owen
Loving the Facebook pictures of you all :-)
Posted by: Matt | May 14, 2009 at 02:21 AM