What I Have Learned After One Week

            I am now sitting on my couch, pink elephant burp cloth over my shoulder, my week-old newborn baby girl doing more twitching, flailing, and grunting than actual sleeping, my wife is passed out, and my dog is chasing something in his minds eye while he quietly barks.

            I guess this is fatherhood.

            For the past week, my life has completely changed as my wife and I welcomed our newest little minion into our lives. As a new father, I thought it would be good to list a few of the things that have taken me by surprise as I begin to comprehend the weight of being responsible for the survival of another living, breathing, mini-human.

Watching the Birth

            Being the science nerd that I am, I was prepared for the “miracle” of life that I was shown in 10th grade biology class. Those of you my age remeber this one, it came on a VHS tape and was put together at some point in the early 1980's, and was used by life science teachers up until the late 2000's when someone realized that giving birth has changed a bit in 30 years of research and development, and created a more current version, which still makes labor look like a scene out of a horror movie. So, with that experience, I was ready for blood, screaming, blood, a blue colored baby, blood, and my wife blaming me for putting her through the ordeal of pushing a human the size of a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon.

            It was anything but that. I watched as my wife was poked and prodded, endured endless contractions that doubled her over, and conversed with me and the nurses for over 40 hours, and it was an amazing experience. Yes, the 80’s video lingered in my mind as I awaited the birth explosion that I was told would happen. But it was a slower process. My wife pushed for around two hours, but it wasn’t until the last 5 minutes when the head emerged, and then the rest of my daughter literally fell out of my wife, and bounced on the delivery table and into our doctors’ hands. I was more interested in the process of labor than I thought, then I remembered that what fell out was my brand new baby. And my new baby did not look as I thought it should…

My Child is a Cone Head

            They do not tell you that your child will emerge into this world with a pear for a head. In my mind, I always thought that my child would be this amazingly beautiful child the moment she was born. Wrong! Totally wrong! The first thought that went through my head when she was born was, “She’s not going to look like that right? She’s pointy! Why is she pointy? Does that change?”

            The nurses plop a hat on all the babies right away because it makes them look “normal” when you first hold them, but you can still see they have a cone head, and you can’t help but think they are going to be teased the rest of their life, and you start to ponder what was wrong with your sperm to produce such an alien life form.

            But all is well! After a few days the skull (which is made of several soft plates that have yet to fuse together) of my baby girl re-formed to produce a wonderfully normal, round, cabbage patch doll head. Which is great for me because I would not have been able to carry on a conversation with my daughter if she had two pigtails on each side of her head and a Mount Everest piercing through her hair and scraping the ceiling of my house. I would lose my shit.

My Eyelids Are Conspiring Against Me

            That should give you how little sleep that I have gotten as a new father. My minion does not sleep when we sleep. It is like she has a monitoring system linked up to the sleep cycle of my wife and me. When we even talk about sleep, she screams and screams and screams for something. And there are only four things that she could want; biddy (aka boobie, and if anyone has seen the Bono episode of South Park you will understand the reference), diaper change, needs to burp, or is too hot/cold. That’s it! Only those four things. And if you go through those four things and she’s still pissed off, guess what, you start again and and the cycle continues! And for our minion, it may be the she is preparing to poop. In which case we have to wait it out until she is relaxed enough to forcibly push...no...explode!...her poop from her body. It happened in my hand once, she actually jumped up at the force she exterted on me. I'm such a proud papa.

            Since I have been home the past three nights, I have slept a combined, COMBINED, 10 hours. Every time I wake up I see double, I can smell light, and I hear babies crying in my head. Just like static on a radio, baby cries just pop in and out of the background even if my daughter is silent. If you want to know the definition of sleep deprivation; it’s being a parent and hearing crying while you are holding your sleeping baby and still looking for where the crying baby is. I checked every room in my house to make sure I had the right baby at 2:00 am in the morning because I had been up since 4:00 am the previous morning, and was convinced that she had made it out of her room and was playing hide and seek with me. Needless to say, sleep is important but I am so tired I have forgotten how to do the thing where you turn your brain off so you can slip into unconsciousness. I have also begun to talk with the stuffed animals in my daughter’s room. They have started talking back. I don’t like what they have to say…

I Forget to Eat and Do Other Things

            As a husband and father my responsibility is to ensure two things; 1. The survival and happiness of my new minion, and 2. The survival and happiness of my loving spouse. Now with that being my new meaning in life, I forget to take care of myself. I am constantly running to change diapers, shop for essential life things that we just forget about now that we are parents, attach my little one to my wife’s gigantic milk dispensers, burp my minion, clothe my minion, keep my wife hydrated with her super ultra mega gulp of ice water so she can keep producing milk, cooking for and then feeding my wife so she can make even more milk (who, if you can’t tell by now, is simply a walking, talking milk container who has two straws that are only for our little minion).

I am doing all these things for my wife and my minion, but I forget that I am also a living human that needs a few essentials to survive. My wife has to actually remind me to sleep because I do so much and just run out of time to sleep. I am supposed to be sleeping right now, but I thought writing this would be a better use of my time…because of all of my fans…which I would say number in the twenties at this point.
I know I’m tired, because my wife will try to talk with me and I just fall asleep in the middle of our conversation. Not intentionally, but my mind tells my body to hit the reset button and I shut down as if someone pulled my power cord out from the wall. I have yet to fall asleep while changing a diaper…I’m waiting for that experience.

I also find myself doing so much that I simply forget to eat, which I love to do. Today, I had breakfast at 9:00 am and did not eat until 6:00 pm. I missed two other meals between those times (I have two lunches, don’t judge, I need the calories). My wife has to ask me what I ate to ensure that I actually had something. If I can’t remember, she orders me to go and eat like I’m some sort of child, and I go off giddy because I get to eat pudding and graham crackers for lunch like a six year old. I make my own lunch, It’s a perk of being a grown up.

            So yes, my entire life revolves around this little seven-pound squishy human tadpole. There are new adventures everyday and to share them is an interesting way for you all to experience the drama of my new life of fatherhood. I know it is going to be a rewarding journey over the next 18 years or so, but as of right now, I constantly find myself standing in the middle of my kitchen, staring at my fridge. No reason why, just kinda standing there, trying to remember how to be a person again.

Now, I’m going to have a bowl of Breyer’s Caramel Gelato, change a diaper, attach my Minion to my wife’s chest, argue with a stuffed turtle about climate change, and then try to lay in bed and not panic about every sound my daughter makes every 30 seconds. Good night!