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My wife and I have spent a lot of time recently wondering what our daughter will be like…what her voice will sound like, what her temperament will be, what music will she like, what kind of a student will she be, ad nauseum…
- We are almost certain that she will like to dance as that’s how her mom and dad spent their first “date”
- She won’t like math
- She will be involved in athletics – to what degree we aren’t sure
- Her mouth will probably get her into trouble
- She will care about others
- She will be strong willed and confident
- She will either hate spiders or snakes…maybe both
Of course, there is no way of knowing what she will grow up to be but we are going to do our best to not screw up too bad.
This seems like something that I should be writing about when she starts driving, or when she moves to college…a post with this title when she’s only 4 months old requires some perspective.
My wife and I were talking a few nights ago when our daughter was asleep in her crib, and had been for nearly 2 hours. She was sleeping soundly, and has been for almost 2 and a half months.
I had a moment of clarity when I asked, “Do you remember the first few weeks we had her here?”
“It seems like a lifetime ago, but yes, I do remember,” she replied.
I continued, “she slept for maybe an hour at a time, two if we were lucky!”
At the time, we both thought that the days of late night feedings, breast-feeding difficulties, gassiness, fussiness, and all around sleep loss was our fate for eternity. We had resigned to this fate and learned to go on with 2, maybe 3 hours of sleep a night.
Now, I can’t tell you when it happened, but in a gradual fashion, she began to sleep more and more. She ate more at each feeding. She gained weight. And 2 and a half months later we are all getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night. We are spoiled at this point and if at any time she cries (if we have eliminated all other crying reasons…wet diaper, empty stomach, gas, etc), we have no clue what to do.
Call me crazy, but I know now that I miss the days when she weighed under ten pounds, so small and brand new. I now know that I will never have those days back. Sure, it is great that we get more sleep, but that means we get less time with our daughter. I’ll miss the newness of her laughter and smiles, her reliance on mommy and daddy to hold her bottle when she eats, being her only means of transportation, and many more…
I guess I can fill those voids with the hope of things to come…her first words, the first time she crawls, walking, etc. She has a whole life of firsts ahead and we plan on being a part of all of them. Whether she likes it or not!!
The easiest way to make a baby spit up is to put them in a new, clean outfit OR
Put on a new, clean outfit yourself and hold them…
It never fails that when we put our daughter in a brand new outfit, no matter how long it has been since she has eaten, that she immediately spits up on it. It is a virtual certainty.
A pretty popular topic of conversation with visiting guests after the birth of a baby is who the baby favors more in physical and behavioral disposition. “She has her mother’s eyes and lips and her daddy’s sense of humor,” are typical responses to this discussion. It would seem that if the child was female, you would want her to look like her mother, and vice versa for a boy baby. What you actually find is that the baby is often a wonderful amalgamation of both mom and dad, and in the long run, these characteristics won’t matter too much since the baby’s features change almost weekly for many years to come. From the title of this post you can see that my daughter has “thumb toe” (from her mother who has finger toes) of her big toe. Her father’s feet are short and stubby with toes to match. Her fingers are destined to touch the ivory keys some day. She has a smile and a laugh that are only surpassed in naivety by her curious eyes. She farts when she sneezes and she likes to pee when daddy is in between diapers on the changing table. I am looking forward to years of smiles and laughter, sleepless nights and a world of firsts. I don’t want to miss an instant and I can’t wait to see who she’s gonna be…
My original title for this post was “Things I thought I would never do” but after rethinking, I realized that wasn’t appropriate. I always knew that I wanted to get married, I just didn’t know when it was going to happen. Now I can’t remember ever being single, what it was like to sleep in bed alone, and not having someone to share everything with. I am serious when I say that my wife is my best friend. She wasn’t to begin with, but as time moved on, I can say with all honesty that she is now and always will be.
I knew that I wanted to go to college, but I never thought I would ever get a Master’s degree. And now that dream is getting closer as the days go by. Soon I will go before my committee and present my thesis. By August 2008 I will have my MS in Clinical Psychology.
I knew that I wanted to be a Dad. I think this is something that I have wanted to do more than anything. I try to be calm day by day, but I am getting more anxious than my wife these days. I hope our little girl is healthy and happy and that she knows that her Mother and I love her very much.
