Now Entering Parenthood...

Simon is two months old now, and steadily gaining weight, as many of our recent photos will show. He’s got “chub” on parts of his body that I would never expect. Wrist chub? Ankle chub? I keep reminding myself that baby fat is completely normal, I just hope he doesn’t get TOO fat! This past week has been huge for us, because Simon has finally started doing something we’ve been anxiously awaiting: smiling!

I had no idea that such a seemingly small thing could have such an impact on me, but it most definitely does. Because newborns don’t do much other than eat, sleep, cry, and mess their diapers, I have used some not so flattering terms to describe my son (“slug”, “lump”, “blob”, etc). However, as Simon has begun to make more and more adorable “cooing” sounds, I’m finally starting to see him in a whole new way. At times, it can even feel like I am actually having a “conversation” with him. But all the cooing and cute fidgeting in the world doesn’t compare to seeing your child stare blankly at you for about 10 seconds, then witnessing that blankness slowly become a grin, followed finally by a full blown smile that lasts for more than 5 seconds.

It’s almost impossible to explain what it felt like to see that for the first time. Everyone around me has always said “you won’t know until you’re there”, and it couldn’t be more true. I was recently thinking about the decision to have kids as a whole. It’s something that you know you want to do, but you really don’t know why. It’s just this voice inside your head that just comes on…..”time to think about pro-creating”….but until you actually hold the child in your arms, all you can do is imagine what you think it might be like. Now that Simon is cooing & smiling, this whole thing just got a lot more interesting and awesome for me as a dad.

Sadly, all of this happened just a few days before we began bringing him to…you guessed it… daycare. Monday was Simon’s first day at daycare, and it was not easy for us. In the midst of all the preparation and hustling to get him out the door on time, we forgot to pack the most essential item of all….his food! Luckily we had a can of formula in the diaper bag, so it wasn’t that big a deal, but it just added to the sadness and stress we were both feeling. But I still feel that we made a great choice in daycares.

It’s a home daycare run by a very sweet and loving Indian woman named Mita. She and her two assistants have about 10 kids total, and Simon is one of three infants. Mita understood the stress we were feeling and made sure to remind us that we could call her anytime, for any reason at all. Her house is completely devoted to being a daycare, full of toys and all sorts of things that you’d find in a typical preschool environment. That is, except for the lavish artwork and crazy Indian statues that cover the walls. A perfect environment for stimulating a growing baby’s mind.

We’ve not quite reached the end of the first week, and already I’m feeling as though we’re getting used to the new routine. Simon seems to be getting pretty regular with his sleeping as well, though he’s still not very close to sleeping through the night. That is something that I’ll hopefully be able to report soon in an upcoming post.