Lessons Learned since birth

Well, not my birth. Since Quinn’s birth…

I don’t remember where I heard this, but recently I’ve been fond of quoting the phrase, “I was a great parent until I became a parent.”

My wife and I went into this with intentions of using cloth diapers, not using a pacifier, etc. Well, we held out for a week on the cloth diapers, and a whopping three weeks on the pacifier.

On the cloth diaper front, we found that for our son who was under 8 pounds, we couldn’t get a solid fit. Plus, until he starts taking solid food, his poo is basically runny. And the cloth diapers — perhaps because of the way we were folding them or perhaps because of his size — were not doing a great job of keeping the liquid in. But we’re not ruling out cloth diapers. We still like the idea. So we’re planning to try again with diapers once he’s on solid food and a little bit bigger. Maybe after 6 months. (Plus, I swear… the diaper was SOOO huge when folded, we couldn’t get any onesies on him.)

As far as the binky — the American Academy of Pediatrics (or some such title) recommends not introducing a pacifier until 4 weeks. We made it to 3. So that’s not so bad. But, we were concerned about nipple confusion for breast feeding, and also having him become “addicted” to having a pacifier in his mouth for soothing himself to sleep. (We’d prefer to have him learn to sooth himself, which seems healthier.) But… at 4am when you just want the little stinker to shut up and go to sleep… the pacifier calls out to you. “Uuuuuuuse me! I can heeeeelp.”  I feel like an alcohol trying to resist the tempting allure of “just one beer.”

So yeah, at 4am I found myself shoving a pacifier in his mouth. God. It was sweet. He quieted right up, calmed down, and I was able to get some extra shut eye. I feel selfish, because I realize this isn’t done for his benefit, but rather my benefit. Which is kind of selfish of me. Like I said, I was a great parent until I became one.

Going into this, people would say to us, “Having a kid is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.” And it comes off as cliche, so I’m prone to ignoring advice like that. I would think, “C’mon. The hardest thing? I’ve road my bike from Seattle to Portland three times. That’s 200 miles. That’s pretty damn hard.” And I was also of the mindset that if this has been done billions of times before us, then we should be able glean a lot from the collective experience of all those births, and stand on the shoulders of giants so-to-speak. In theory, we should be able to be completely prepared. After all, we took all the classes. We bought everything we were supposed to buy. I spent countless hours investigating only the safest and best products that we truly needed. I didn’t buy anything unless I spent a good 30 minutes investigating it and reviewing and comparing it online.

Well, I’m here to echo the cliche, “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Not physically taxing; I’m not incredibly tired. It’s not mentally taxing; I feel alert enough. It’s just… fucking hard. Really fucking hard. I’m trying to put my finger on it… I think it’s hard because it’s the most selfless I’ve ever had to be. I can’t sleep when I want. I can’t just hop in the car and go to the store when I want. Everything I do has to be done in service of another being, and all of my wishes take a back seat to the needs of this little guy. I mean, I’m doing it. It’s not like I’m neglecting him. I think what’s hard about it is the fact that it’s hard to go from living a selfish lifestyle, cold turkey, to having to be completely selfless. I feel like my life has gone from the main plot of the sitcom, to the secondary story (usually some subplot about Karla or Coach or Cliff, used as filler in between the main plot between Sam and Diane.

Anyway, you don’t realize how hard it is until you have to coordinate your pooping schedule with your wife. A busy day for us is if we manage to all three go to the grocery store. That takes about 5 hours of preparation. (Got to feed him at this time, then get his nap, then feed when he wakes up, but change his diaper before he finishes feeding so he doesn’t wake up… etc.)

As materially prepared as we were… I wasn’t prepared for just the complete shift in my mental processing of “what a typical day is.”  It’s not “What would I like to do today?” Rather, it’s “What can I squeeze in when my kid is asleep?”  My concept of a schedule has gone out the window. We do things whenever we can. Not at a certain time. Clocks have no meaning it seems. Before, the day ended when we went to bed, and the next day began when we woke up. Now, days blur into nights as we’re up every couple of hours changing diapers, feeding, and soothing. These past 5 weeks haven’t felt like 35 individual days… just one reeeeeally long stream of diapers, feedings, sun going up, darkness, daylight… one really long day.