Fatherhood, Thoughts On

Thoughts on being a new parent, part one of a series:
-- Shock: There's this odd realization that occurs after a few days of being at home and feeding and cleaning the boy, and that realization is that there's no one coming to pick this kid up; he has no other parents that have left him with you for the evening/weekend/week while they're on vacation or date night. You're it. Forever. Whoa.
-- Attack of the Innocents: He's crying. He's crying, and you've tried everything you can think of: cuddling, diaper, food, burping. He's about to break you down faster than Barney the Dinosaur played at ear-splitting decibels. And then, suddenly, he stops. He stops, and the fight just drains right out of him, and he gets this look on his face, often with his eyes closed, and that face is the most beatific face in the world: he's at peace, and so are you. And you melt.
-- Noise Canceling: Ever watched a kid melt down in a supermarket or other public place and wondered how the parents can handle all of that incredible screaming? Wonder no more: we get used to it. I can still be brought out of a dead sleep by a slight whimper two rooms away, but the shrieks and cries that accompany diaper changing? Well, I'm not a fan, but my pulse doesn't go up. He's got two modes of communication: on and off. Once he's communicated his discomfort to me, it's all just network noise: SYN? ACK. SYN? SYN? SYN? ACK. And if you didn't enjoy the old sound of a modem hooking up, I apologize in advance for the discomfort this may bring you.
-- Diapers! My good friends Alan and Kim (and their delightful boy Beckett) stopped by a couple of weekends before the C-section, and Alan told me that when he was in hospital for Kim's C-section he'd changed Beckett's diapers from the start, not really understanding that the nurses were quite willing to do it for him. Well, I'm as much of a masochist as the next guy, so when Luke was born, I stepped up and changed that first diaper. And I am here to tell you: it looked like fudgy tar, and it stuck like fudgy tar. But! Once that first diaper was done, the next one was better and easier, and it just kept progressing from there, until I was getting pretty darn relaxed about the whole thing. And then, last week, after I'd forced Yoko to go to bed for some much, much needed sleep, I got to experience a full blow-out. Luke's been eating formula and breast milk, so there's the occasional transition from one to the other, followed by predictable results downstairs. Let's just put it this way: it was a thing. Nuff said. However, as funky as those things get, thank god for olfactory desensitization; I _know_ this stuff is like toxic waste, but the most I get is a whiff of funk.
-- Process of Elimination: (Not directly related to the above.) Note to self: when the kid wakes up, starts acting uncomfortable, sorta cries, and starts rooting around for a breast or bottle or pacifier (DON'T JUDGE ME), do not be fooled or distracted; you are looking at a wet diaper. If you allow yourself, you can quickly find ourself running down the rabbit hole of trying to comfort, trying to feed, trying to burp, etc. You can spend half an hour walking the kid around, patting him on the back, singing to him, laying him down on his tummy to play, etc., and he'll be sorta satisfied with all of this attention, but, at the end of the day, that wet diaper is going to bring you right back to crying. Save time: check the diaper. Oh, and by "check the diaper" I mean open it up and feel the front of it; those little yellow stripes that are supposed to turn blue if the diaper is wet only work most of the time, but your finger will know the difference.
-- The Help: Yoko's mom is here from Japan, helping out. This is its own flavor of awesome. When I finish my midnight shift, I can hand over things to her and know that Yoko won't be on her own for the four or five hours I'm crashed out. And, of course, it's been great for my Japanese. New vocabulary: おむつ (omutsu, diaper); おしゃぶり (oshaburi, pacifier); こなミルク (konamiruku, formula); 母乳 (bonyuu, mother's milk); 泣く (naku, to cry or howl). Good times.