Saturday, November 3, 2007

Tales from the other side of fatherhood

Last night was no joke one of the most stressful nights of my life. At the hospital, Jonah was nice and quiet most of the night and slept for four hour stretches. First night home though was a nightmare. Beware this, future parents. No matter what we did, he was wailing. I slept for half hour stints a couple times, but after 4 am he would not go back to sleep. I handed him off to Rachel and considered taking a walk outside at 5 am in the foggy blackness just to get out of the house and clear my head. Of course this was a terrible idea, but you think crazy thoughts when you can't sleep.


They told us in parenting classes that it was going to be tough, but I always thought "man I've operated on little sleep before, how tough can it be?" Let me tell you, it's harder than just about anything you've ever done. Being a parent isn't all birthday parties and clothes with little duckies on them. It's a lot of crying, diaper changing, holding your little bundle of joy and rocking him til you feel like your arms are going to fall off. It's work. I thought it was going to be great taking time off from work, but really you almost have to just to get your body switched over to baby time. 10 years from now, I'll look back fondly on almost everything about having a baby........except this first week. Yikes.

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