#081 - Learning to be a Parent

My wife Siobhan hounded me for several months about writing a blog post for our son Nolan's first birthday. As you can see, I clearly heeded her requests, as we are now 3 full months after his birthday and I'm just getting around to starting.

It has been a remarkable year (15 months). Sometimes I feel like I can barely remember life without Nolan, though I do have pretty clear memories of what it was like when Siobhan was pregnant, so I'd say more accurately I barely remember what life was like before Nolan started growing. Did we really used to take 2-hour naps on Saturday morning after the gym? Did we really used to "sleep in"? Did we really used to be able to fit everything we needed for a weekend trip in a bag or two? I suppose in some ways not being able to remember all of that is kinda helpful -- every now and I then I miss the ability to do something that we were able to do before Nolan, like sleep in, or go out for a date night dinner, but I most of the time I don't even really remember what was so great about our lives before him so I can't say I really miss it.

Instead, what we have is this amazingly funny, happy, sweet 15 month old who brings new joys and new challenges into our lives every day. What we've lost in terms of free time we've gained in family time. We eat so many more meals together, we love when we're able to be together for his bedtime, and we have a lot of fun taking him to the park.

I'd say that generally there is a lot more stress in our relationship, which maybe sounds like a bad thing when you say it out loud, but it's a product of needing to have more things readily available (his necessities like diapers, wipes, food), needing to be on a tighter schedule (he's a ticking bomb when he doesn't eat on time), and needing to have a set of eyes on him a great majority of the time (he's at the age where his toys are kinda boring but sharp things and electrical cords are very fun). You lose a little bit of the flexibility to just say, "Oh, darn, I forgot."

At the same time, to counter that stress there is the great benefit of being invested in a very important task together. We're both focused on the goal of raising this child together and keeping him in a safe, healthy environment, and that creates a really strong bond. I'd be totally lost without Siobhan, and -- even though she is amazing and definitely lifts most of the weight in caring for Nolan -- she needs me to be as helpful as I can be when necessary, and to give her a break when she needs some time to decompress. We have found a pretty good parenting flow, where when one of us is really stressed our or upset, the other tends to dial it down and put their own issues aside to help take the pressure off. Or if I'm getting really frustrated with Nolan, she can swoop in and redirect him, or vice versa. I hope that most parent couples operate in that way, though I can see that it'd be a huge problem if one person's stress just exacerbated the other's instead.

We just got back from a 2 1/2 week trip to the Philadelphia area for a wedding, family time, and Thanksgiving, and if there's any time you need that balance, it's living away from home for that long. Normally it's Siobhan who gets stressed out about our travel, making sure we have everything packed and where are we going to sleep and is Nolan going to be happy. But this time, I was the one who had a lot of trouble. Nolan had a few very unusual bad nights of sleep, then he dealt with a fever and an ear infection for a few days, and there was a snowstorm in the middle of all of it, so I was just getting a little worn out trying to deal with all of that while moving place to place and living out of a suitcase and trying to work my full time job at the same time. Siobhan was exhausted from training for and running the Philadelphia marathon, not to mention taking Nolan to the doctor for his ear infection, and still she managed to help take the stress off my and let me know that she was going to listen and be there for any needs that I might have.

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One of the weird indirect benefits of having a kid is that you suddenly become a valid source of information for other people who are trying for children or expecting. I never put any thought into this before, even though we constantly asked our friends with older kids for advice from the moment we knew we were going to be parents. It's been kinda fun to feel like you have valuable input, even though I am always hesitant and acknowledge that everybody has different experiences, and just because I found something to be true doesn't mean it's going to work for you. But I wanted to make a note of some of the things I've thought along the way, either to help those who might be expecting, or to look back on in a couple years and realize what an idiot I was. Again, if you disagree with what I have to say, that's totally cool. Obviously we can't be friends anymore, but I respect your opinion, even though it's garbage.

From the pregnancy phase:

- Don't buy too much stuff ahead of time. Especially clothing. As Siobhan likes to say, "Once we brought Nolan home, it was like Target threw up all over our front porch." The other thing to be careful about is sizing. I was a huge baby, so everyone kinda assumed Nolan would be big, so we didn't have very many NB sized things for him. Then when he was smaller than expected, we didn't have much to put him in right away. It could go the reverse though, too, and you'd have all these NB sized things you just have to give away.

- But DO load up on diapers and wipes, especially if other people buy them for you (and if you have the room to keep them). We had awesome friends and family who loaded us up, and we went a crazy long time before buying wipes.

- Go to the classes and hospital visits. (This is mostly for dads, like most of the stuff I'm mentioning. Moms are good. Dads need some reassurance.) Our birth class was like 7 hours long on a Saturday. I did not want to go to that, you can be sure. But it was a good experience, and it gave you answers to questions that you think you might be too embarrassed to ask, but are actually important to know when the time comes, like, "Where the heck do we park? Do we just drive up to the emergency room when she's in labor?" There's nothing worse than having to figure that out while your wife is screaming in agony trying to bring your child into the world. Dads are happy to sit there looking around the room waiting for other dads to ask. These classes and visits answer all your not-dumb questions.

From the hospital phase:

- Bring comfy stuff. There's no such thing as, "Well, I'm going to bed," when you're in the hospital. It's like you sleep for 2 hours if you can, and then you're up, and then you can try to sleep again. If your hospital doesn't have comfy stuff for you, like a good pillow and a blanket, you are going to be miserable trying to sleep.

- Get used to people seeing your wife naked. You can draw the line at the guy who picks up and drops off your food, but basically everyone else is seeing her naked like all day. You get over it quickly.

- Ask tons of questions. The nurses in the recovery room are your heroes, they are everything you aspire to be when it comes to taking care of a child. Watch, ask, learn. And when you are leaving swipe blankets, diapers, wipes, lotion, whatever they have there for the baby, just swipe it all. You're paying for it anyway.

From the new parent phase:

- You're going to be fine. I've heard so many people (and I was probably one of them) be like, "I've never changed a diaper, I don't know how to hold a baby, I'm not sure I'm ready for this." There's no such thing as ready or not ready. You don't really have a choice. You start changing diapers, you start holding the baby, and in hours (or days at the worst) you are a pro. You'll be fine.

- Get out of the house early. When the babies are really little, they can sleep anywhere with any noise level. Bring them in the car seat out to dinner. When your kid gets to be like 7-8 months old and wants to move around and needs to be asleep by 7 PM, your ability to go out to dinner with them drops precipitously. (Again, this is just me, it could be different for you.) When Nolan was like 10 months and screaming in his high chair and throwing food on the floor when we tried to go to dinner at like 5:30, I missed this stage.

- TRY to go out and do things. It doesn't mean you have to stay and stick through meltdowns or a fussy baby or blowout diapers. But some people become glued to their houses when they have a baby and to me that doesn't seem like a fun way to live. Go out, go to a park or a fair or a street market or something, and if it's not working, just go home.

- When people say, "I'd love to watch the baby if you want to go out," take them up on it. They might be offering just to be nice, but call them out on it. Can't beat help.

From the toddler/wobbler stage:

- Take videos of your kid doing cute things and watch them before you go to sleep at night. It's the freaking best.

- Give people lots of unsolicited advice as if you've reinvented the wheel of being a parent, they love that. Wait a second...

#080 - Motherhood is Remarkable

Our son, Nolan, is now 8 months old. Which is pretty unbelievable, both in that it's not much time at all, and in that I can barely remember what life was like before him. He's been here forever, at least since he showed up a little while ago.

I could, and probably should, go on and on about all the things I love about him, and all the ways he's changed my life and the course of my (what is now a) family. But for now, the one thing I want to focus on is the kind of bemusing way that I've come to accept that all the cliches about parenthood are true, even though me-from-two-years-ago would dismiss that.

There truly is no sound better than his laugh. A few months ago, before laughing became regular, we would talk about how excited we were to find out what it sounded like. What would provoke it? Would it be a hearty belly laugh or a high pitched giggle? We got some good smiles from him and some little snorts here and there, and then we would proceed to try and replicate the exact actions we were doing that elicited the noises. And then one day it just clicked and he started giggling, and I was able to snag this photo, which at the time I thought was my favorite photo ever (and still might be). I could look at this every day and it'd make me happy.

The other cliche that fits is that parenting is really hard, but that I'd never trade it for anything. There was a three or four week period when he was maybe 2 or 3 months old where he screamed his head off every night from about 6 PM - 8 PM, when we were trying to give him his nighttime bottle and lay him down to bed. It tested every level of patience and calm that I had, and I consider myself a pretty calm person. It was really hard. It stressed on me and it stressed Siobhan because of how snappy I was towards her. As much as I love him, it made it hard to want to sit there and witness it because nothing I was doing was helping to settle him down. But all the same, we would wake up the next day to his adorable, smiling face, and all of that pain would melt away like it didn't matter anymore. I didn't forget about it, and I still haven't forgotten about it, but ultimately it doesn't change what we have with him. When he's happy, it washes away all of the frustrations of when he's cranky or difficult. And I don't think people should be too prideful to say that selfishly it feels really good to make another person (as small as he might be) laugh or smile. When he sees me and smiles because it's me, that is an unbelievable feeling. I could forgive him for anything in that moment. (Sometimes I think parents are too quick to mention how much they love to give to their kids, as if it's a completely selfless act of sacrifice, when there are a ton of great things to get at the same time.)

And the last thing that I've really spent some time thinking about this week, with good reason, is that it's just mindblowing how amazing women are when they become mothers. I can't get over all of the things that Siobhan has done in the last two years, preparing herself for this, carrying him and growing him, delivering him, and nurturing and caring for him. And it's not like it's out of left field or anything -- she was a teacher, a heavily experienced babysitter and aunt, and would happily listen to her friends who were new moms. She certainly checked off all the boxes that suggested she would be really good at the whole mom thing, but that doesn't mean watching it unfold has been any less mesmerizing. As a man, my initial reaction when I see pregnant women or women with very small children is, "I literally can't even imagine what it's like to give birth or be a mother." It's hard to even fathom how it's possible. And it's not like Siobhan got a masters degree on how to become a mom, but I still view her as having that kind of expertise. She'd be the first to tell you that a lot of it is biology and hormones, they just kind of kick in at times when you need them, and she'll tell me she doesn't even know why she feels something but she does and chalks it up to mom instincts. But that's just the first step. I might have some instinctual beliefs about how to do something in the course of my day, but if I mess up, there typically isn't a human life at stake. Siobhan has had the confidence to follow through on her instincts, and the ability to make changes if something isn't working right. She reads lots of articles and talks to lots of other moms (and pediatricians, and pediatricians who are moms) about things, so it's not like she's uninformed from outside sources. But ultimately I end up asking her what she wants me to do with Nolan and just going with it, because whatever mom brain she's developed for herself is working great.

The amount of time and attention she's dedicated to him is absolutely priceless. Before he was born, she had made up her mind that she was going to take a few months off and then go back to work at the end of the winter. It seemed like a reasonable plan, but after going through birth and the first few months, she felt like it was the right move to just stay home for the first year. I was pretty nervous about how it was going to go at first, me working from home, the two of them in the house one room over. And I didn't want her staying home to be with Nolan to derail her from any career advancements she was working towards. It was also taking away some income from us, at a time when I was nervous that we were going to need it. But it has worked out great. She's gone the extra mile and taken in a second baby a few days a week, and we've recently started bringing in some side money with more dogsitting during the day. And all throughout that time, she's devoted her time to Nolan. She gets up with him once or twice a night, every night, to feed him. She's up with him when he wakes up in the morning. She takes him to the gym with her, she takes him for runs. She's been his food source, his cleaning crew, his personal chef, his teacher, and his best friend. I don't want to minimized the decisions that any family makes for their interests -- some people need to return to work as soon as possible and put their kids in daycare, some people are able to take more time and keep their kids at home. They are equally valid options. Whatever decisions people make for the well being of their children (and their own well being, let's not forget), I wouldn't question them. After all, we have already gone through the process of deciding to send Nolan to daycare, it just didn't work out that way (or didn't work out that way yet). But after experiencing what we've gone through, I wouldn't want it to have happened any other way. I think it's going to be hard for her to make the decision to go back to work at some point and not be with him during the day. It's going to be hard for me, too. I work, so I'm not the one full-time responsible for him during work hours, but it's been so great for me to have them at home, where I can go and hang out and see him and help out whenever possible. It's the best of both worlds. I know he's getting the best care possible and I also get to sneak in time to spend with him during the day.

It's hard to even remember what our daily routine was like before Nolan, but at this point I'm just so eternally impressed and grateful to have Siobhan be the rock of the family. Neither of us like to refer to my solo time with Nolan as "daddy duty" or "babysitting" (cringe), because I am equally his parent and taking care of my own child does not qualify as babysitting (hat-tip Jeff). But I have had several stretches where I've been alone with him and had to get him dinner, bath, and bedtime without Siobhan around to add a second pair of hands, and it is honestly quite tiring. Yet there are countless days where she's the one watching after him, and while she is exhausted or sore at the end of many days, she just proceeds to get up the next day and carry on with it as if it's just part of the routine. She very rarely hands him off to me to take an hour for herself, even though she'd be well within her rights to do so, we all need time to decompress. She's just committed to doing what's best for Nolan at all hours of the day, and that mainly means tiring herself out in the process. I just can't picture what these last 8 months would have looked like without Nolan by her side all day, and I feel really lucky that he's received so much love from his ever-doting mama. He's such a great little boy, and part of that is just his personality, but the other part of it is because he's given the care he deserves.

It's a little surreal to be celebrating this first real Mother's Day with my wife, when, even though we're thankful and appreciative of the other mothers that we have in our lives, now the main focus has been shifted to her. I look forward to countless future Mother's Days where Nolan is able to express how much Siobhan means to him directly.

And lastly, I just want to express that, even though motherhood has been so great for Siobhan, I love the fact that she hasn't been consumed by it. She's still the same person that I fell in love with and married. She's back into running a lot and completed another half marathon recently, even running faster times than she did pre-pregnancy. She still listens to her true crime podcasts while she cleans the house -- though she's also gotten pretty into some mom comedy recently. We still like laughing at the same movies and shows together, or looking at cute dogs on shelter websites. And we still enjoy a delicious dinner out, though we've quickly gotten accustomed to 5:45 seatings to accommodate Nolan's schedule. All in all, I'd say these first 8 months with him couldn't have gone any better. Having him in our life has been a wonderful addition more than it has been a daunting change.

Happy Mother's Day.