Yes this a thousand times yes. Keeping kids in line for hours at a time is completely different than knowing that whatever you do wrong will come back to bite you in the behind tomorrow or the next day…
Well put. There is a realization that some of the things I am doing are irrational - 4 CO2 detectors - and knowledge that the compulsion comes from a place I have never had arise for me prior to 11 days ago. My wife and I talk extensively about what has changed and about how we can look at our little boy sleeping and suddenly burst into tears. My wife is not a crier…or better said, my used to not be a crier…now with all those hormones she lost and is replenishing, she cries at the drop of a hat. I do to for that matter.
One thing I am taking a little long with is managing expectations; like you said, there is no need to have the baby gates up just yet, or why would I buy a bike for a newborn? Right now we are sticking with finding the best place for pictures and waiting until he is asleep to arrange him like Ann Geddes.
Really, I am just trying to remain present with him and not step too far into the future!
And even more importantly, Super BabySitter gets to hand the kid off, with no liability. They get to decide I don’t want to babysit today, better call Sis and let her know! They get to ignore shit, knowing that Sis can deal with it - it’s her kid, right?
You should go back and read your homebirth thread with that reptile brain engaged…you may start to understand why some of us were so aghast and perhaps forgive us. Its the same sort of “four CO2 detectors” rationality.
(I’m inferring everything went well, and I’m very happy you got what you were looking for).
Thank you and I have - somewhat. Everything went exactly how we intended. The only caveat was that we thought we’d be in labor a lot longer, when in the end it was about 7 hours…[minus about 15-hrs of sporadic braxton hicks]. I told myself after that thread went on for so long, that anger was not something I would indulge in for that thread - it was meant as a birth thread for me…not a mission to prove anything to anyone.
One person said near the end of that thread that I was going to come back [if everything went well] and gloat to everyone that they were wrong…not only was that a gross characterization of who I was, but it was something that stuck in my head as an example of me being hurt because I was not understood.
I understand the concerns everyone had, and now that I see my big boy laying on the bed with his momma I see them in a bit of a different light; I can not imagine anything happening to either of these beauties.
Just popping in to say that picture is ADORABLE! Sqeeeee! Baby toes!
My wife and I brought the Firebug home from Russia when I was 55. If you’re a ‘Senior Parent,’ they must think I’m freakin’ Methuselah!
In spades.
This, a thousand times over!
Nobody could have gotten it through to me just how much work is involved in being a parent, and how little time I’d have to myself. And despite having known for decades that I wanted to be a dad, I had no idea, and nobody could have possibly conveyed to me, just how deep the joy of it would be, and how passionate and intense my love for my son would be.
One cliche I’d like to toss on the trash heap, though, is the ‘terrible twos’ (or threes, for that matter) nbit IME, difficult and smooth stretches just seem to come in waves. The Firebug is 4 now, and ISTM that we had good stretches and rough stretches at both 2 and 3.
Congrats to OP!!
I had my son at 19 and I was just a baby myself. I lived alone with my baby and didn’t have help from anyone really. Not the cliche’ i was hoping for but we survived alright.
I envy the parents who live the cliche’ life with their children. Playdates,sports,socializing with other parents,etc. My son is 9 now and I still haven’t been able to get swept into “normal” parenting with him. I’m younger than most of the mothers with 9 yr olds in my area so they tend to not be fond of socializing with me,not for lack of trying on my part,my son would rather play soccer with neighborhood kids than be pressured to be on an organized team…
I think i missed out on the profound feelings that are supposed to come along with becoming a parent. I was too young and disconnected from my baby at the time to really feel all those wonderful things. Although one thing that is sort of a cliche’ that happened to me was I started reacting more sensitively to bad news stories about someone hurting a child or paying more attention to Amber Alerts and things of that nature.
Don’t be bashful about the cliche’ of parenting.
Some of us really wish we could be part of that cliche’ crowd;)
Cute kid, congratulations!
Yeah, my life became a cliche. I tried desperately to stay hip but it just didn’t work (and I was never that hip to begin with, actually).
Fun times ahead. Enjoy!
PS I don’t think C02 monitors are irrational. What I never understood were baby monitors. My houses were not large and my babies were LOUD, and I was never that far from them anyway. To each his own. It’s fine with me if people have baby monitors, I just…don’t understand.
Hee hee - totally. My brother and SIL had their baby in their late 30s. They were already settling into the old person routine and adding the baby didn’t cramp their style much at all - after all, the occasional Monday wing night is what Grandma is for! 
I also find it hilarious that before I pick up the phone and call them I have to mentally calculate if the Princess is sleeping.
A few things, really:
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We adopted, and especially at first, we just wanted to be there quickly if the Firebug was having whatever passes for nightmares for a kid <2 years old. We wanted to do everything we could to give him the sense that he had real parents now.
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I tend to be an early riser, and my wife is more of a night owl. When the Firebug woke up on a weekend morning and my wife was still asleep, I wanted to be able to pull him out of his crib before he woke up my wife.
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In situations when we were both up before the Firebug roused, it was nice to have a few minutes of early warning to switch gears from relaxing over coffee and the computer. Hell, even though we permanently unplugged the baby monitor awhile back, there are times when I’m still tempted to bring it back just for that purpose.
Congrats to the OP! I’m also a new dad; my son Evan was born about 8 weeks ago.
My wife and I haven’t had too many things happen to us yet that have made us stop and remark on the cliché. A lot of changes to our routine, for sure…but not a lot of “what they say is so true” kinds of moments. But there was one big exception to that, and it was our first night at home with our brand new baby.
First, let me set the stage by saying that we didn’t receive a single newborn diaper at either of my wife’s baby showers. Everyone said the same thing they did about newborn-sized cothes: “Oh, no one’s babies are really that small…he’ll probably be in 0-3 month outfits from the start” We’re both larger-than-average people, and we fully expected to have a giant baby. Well, on July 27, here comes 7-lb, 7-oz Evan. The perfect size for the hospital’s newborn-sized Pampers. They sent us home with the rest of the pack, and another unopened pack.
Fast forward to that night. It’s about 1 am, and the baby needs to be changed and fed. We’ve blown through the last of that open pack of diapers and go to open the other package we brought home from the hospital. Uh oh! They’re size 1! It hits us that we officially have nothing that will fit him. I throw on an oversized (size 1) diaper, cinching it up as good as possible, and hand him to my wife to feed while I run to the store for the proper diapers. Of course, I will find out later that not only can’t the diaper hold in what it’s supposed to, it also couldn’t be folded down enough to stay off his umbilical cord stump. As I will also soon learn, if a squirming baby rubs an ill-fitting diaper on his cord stump long enough, it will bleed.
When I return home, my wife is standing over our son, who is on the changing pad. She’s sobbing, trying to hold this oversized diaper on him in such a way to keep everything in. But it’s not working because there’s pee, poop, and blood everywhere…including on her from when she was feeding him.
And that’s where the cliché hit home: I’m out on a bleary-eyed, Raising Arizona-style midnight diaper run on our first night as parents. And I return to a scene of absolute mayhem…mom’s crying, baby is screaming, and there is excrement and bodily fluids everywhere. It was at that moment that we both felt like we had bitten off waaaaay more than we could chew.
But it’s been pretty smooth sailing after that night. Poo explosions have been minimal. He’s only peed on me about 10 times. And he’s gone from an impossibly tiny newborn to a nearly 14-lb porker with an insatiable appetite in less than two months. We’ve given him a pass for that first night of chaos, and couldn’t be happier to have him in our lives.
I remember going through almost every one of the cliches, especially the ones I said I’d never do (“Because I told you to, that’s why!”). I tried to remind myself at every turn when I was bone-tired and frustrated that I had not only volunteered for this job but took extraordinary measures to have it.
Just wait til you’re a grandparent! All those cliches are true, too. I get to spend time with my now 19-month old granddaughter, but I don’t have to get up with her in the middle of the night. And I chuckle to myself everytime my daughter mentions it, because she did not reliably sleep through the night until she was more than 2 years old. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it, Daughter Dear?
So, Boulder High or Fairview? If it’s Peak to Peak you better start schmoozing the Administrators pretty soon. Of course, you’ll want him to run his first Bolder Boulder by age five, so get ready for that. The North Boulder Little League team came one game short of going to Williamsport for the Little League World Series this year, you know, so put a ball in his crib. So much to do!
Damn. I’ve got to let him out?
Kidding. He’s three, anyway.
Yeah, you do become a cliche, and an official member of the Hallmark Suck Club. It’s okay.
Are we talking about carbon dioxide (CO2) the gas we exhale, or carbon monoxide (CO) the gas that silently kills us in our sleep?
'Cause I gotta go to Canadian Tire.
At three they can escape from the pen while you are at work and get into trouble. Pee on the carpets, climb on the furniture in such a way that damages it, steal the chocolate cake from the counter and eat in on the white rug in the living room…
My dog and my kids have done all the above.
Sadly my monkey mind didn’t pick that up…sleep deprivation
Go right ahead and have all the expectations you want to have. He’ll teach you different along the way. It’s not the expectations that will get you, it’s trying to hold onto them when the person on the other end of them has other ones. You’ll find the balance.
Cliches are cliches for a reason, right? It’s okay. You’ll still find a way to make unique mistakes. Because you’re you and he’s him. he? himself? Whatever it should be, he’s a real cutie. Love him and do the best you can.
I dunno, let’s get through the Waldorf School first, then maybe one of those cool “specialty” high schools in the mansions on Mapleton!