The Musings of a Future Father
Yes, our house is only 4 months old.
I’m sitting here writing this post two days before my wife goes into our scheduled C-Section, and it’s a surreal feeling knowing exactly when my beautiful baby girl is going to arrive. As I reflect during my final days of kid-free life, I’m realizing that I have a lot of thoughts I want to capture. I’m going to treat this post a little differently than Jake and I envision the overall blog theme and treat it as more of a dumping ground of quick thoughts and stories. It’s also a bit more stream of consciousness, because, well…I’ve got a kid coming in two days and I need to get this stuff on paper before it’s too late!
All of that said, I do believe that there is a central theme here: ya boi is an idiot. Writing all of these out, I wonder how I convinced a woman to even procreate with me. Not only that, although I’m as prepared as I possibly can be for my impending fatherhood, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m mildly terrified now that it’s becoming real. So, with that, here is a list of what’s currently going through my head (professional transition!):
I’ve read a lot. Articles, books, advice from friends, you name it. I’ve listened to podcasts and watched informational videos. All this preparation (and candidly, a lot at the absolute last minute), and it’s dawning on me that I’m incredibly scared of the unknown. Have I learned the theory behind how to install a car-seat, change a diaper, give the baby a bath, support my wife at 2:00 AM during feedings? Yes, but do I know what that truly means or how to actually do these things? I definitely don’t, and I don’t think I will until the time comes where I’m in the trenches. I learn by doing, which is extremely unfortunate when what I’m learning is how to care for a human being.
I know from literally everyone that we’ll be exhausted and not get any sleep, but I’m thinking to myself “I get insomnia all the time, I’m used to operating on only 3 hours of sleep.” That’s usually only one or two days though, not 10 years straight…so we’ll just have to learn to operate on the fly. I’m going to file this one away in the category of “you just don’t know until you experience it yourself.”
All of these things I’ve mentioned are specifically related to week 1 and beyond. Don’t even get me started on what it means to be a #girldad when she starts growing up. Ballet lessons, first period, first boyfriend, first time getting dumped, high school, college (or no college), just generally being a female aged 13-18 (which is objectively the worst demographic, teenage girls a downright mean)….No, no I’m not prepared for any of these things.
But you know what? I don’t think I need to be. My parents somehow managed to raise me into a high-functioning member of society, and they didn’t have the added benefit of this cool startup called Google. You know I’ll be using that search feature – the internet is an incredible place to make an idiot like me an expert in just about any subject.I'm coming to realize that I'm not as handy as I think I am or want to be. Criticizing your offspring for how poorly he/she is holding the flashlight is a fatherhood rite of passage, but right now I wouldn’t say I’m qualified to cast shade. For example – a couple of weeks ago I had to get an emergency plumber out to my house because my wife, who was 36 weeks pregnant at the time, couldn't go to the bathroom.
“And why was that?” you may be asking yourself. Well let me tell you: I drilled through a pipe while trying to install an alarm keypad in our entryway. It couldn’t have been more perfect either: only one pipe in the wall, and I nailed that sucker dead center. The drill went in, and next thing I knew I had hot water gushing out at me, and had absolutely no effing clue what I was going to do to fix this bad boy, but what I did know: pregnant wife must go pee-pee.
It took calls to four different plumbers before we had someone out to help us fix it. Fellas let me tell you something: it’s a major shot to the ego to have to pay someone to fix something in your house. These guys came in and got our water up and operational in only 30 minutes, and $600 later, we’re now the proud new owners of a giant access panel in the entryway of our brand new construction home. Next major house project on my to-do list: installing drywall without ruining the wall. Did I learn my lesson, and am I going to hire a handyman to do this? Absolutely not, I’m heading to YouTube.OK, so I’ll admit, this is a stupid one: I’m terrified of blowouts. It’s 2020 and the miracles of modern science have led to development of multiple COVID-19 vaccines in about 9 months, yet engineers still can’t figure out how to design a diaper to handle peak poop-load? Isn’t that kinda the point of diapers: to contain shit? The other thing I just read: it’s inevitable that the baby is going to poop in the bathtub – that will be my equivalent of going to see Saw 47 in theaters, but at least there isn’t a scientific invention DESIGNED FOR THAT EXACT EFFING PURPOSE! When the first blowout happens, I just hope that my in-laws are on babysitting duty (don’t tell my wife I said that).
We’ve gotten all the warnings and advice about how hard the first few weeks are, and the need to accept any and all help possible. None of these people with their professional or amateur parenting advice tried to go through the first few weeks in the middle of a global pandemic though. COVID is a bitch, and when my wife and I decided to start trying for a kid, we really thought that it’d be gone by the time she was born.
Well, it’s still here and raging, and we’re just getting creative with how to get help and setting strict rules and guidelines (if you’re interested in what we’re doing, reach out directly – I don’t want to share publicly, because I think that everyone should navigate this in the way they feel comfortable). Being an extreme extrovert, knowing that my friends won’t be able to come be able to come over and meet the baby is killing me, but I know it’s for the best – we’ll get through this soon.
This is only a fraction of the thoughts I currently have racing through my head. One thing I wish I would’ve done is start documenting these sooner. My intent is to come back a year from now and review these to see what sage wisdom I would give to myself. I’m really interested to see how far off I was, and if there’s anything different I could have or should have focused on. We’re 48 hours away from having a newborn, and so now I’m just focusing on enjoying the last vestiges of free time and solo time with my wife. Despite all the negatives I shared in the post, I couldn’t be more pumped for my daughter to arrive. My next post will be as an actual father…which is strange but exciting to type.
