The Newest Daddy

So . . . I'm approaching 30 years of age. Here in about two months I will bid a farewell to my twenties. Age for a man is supposed to be less of a big deal, but I kind of frittered away this decade, you see. Only in the last half did I practice anything near common sense. I started dating again at 26, went back to school at 27, got married at 28, and had my first child at 29. Eventful years, wouldn't you say?

So, unlike most folks who are still young and supple, adapting and bending, finding their niches and becoming adjusted to them, I was already there. At 29 I was newly married, happy, grinding away at a life gone into hyperdrive when all of a sudden (seemingly) came the Frederick, a 7 lb 8 oz. pink, screaming reality check. The wrench in my cogs and the greatest thing to ever grace my life.

It still strikes me to the core to say that I have a son, and that I am a daddy. I smother the poor little man, and no matter how fussy he gets at my scruff grazing his silken little cheeks I just can't help myself. He begs to be loved and cuddled and kissed and paid attention to. What have I learned that I can offer to you, the world at large? Simply the things no one ever thought to express to me. They told you you'd be up all night but they didn't tell you why.

You see, this new little person, he's spent the entirety of his existence in the warm, liquid-filled, smothering safety of his mother's womb. When he strikes air, it is his first experience with such a thing, and every experience that goes along with breathing, smelling, sucking, and swallowing it. He is now a separate entity, an entirely new individual, and he is not used to that at all. Suddenly there is pure sound, there are countless sources of it all around. There is naked cold. There is light! Suddenly his little, warm, cozy and safe world is exploded. Outright his world has multiplied incredibly and it is nigh impossible for him to consider the implications. After all, he has so much more to deal with.

Like that thing in his mouth that cannot be swallowed, spit out, or removed. He is not used to his tongue. That will take a couple days to deal with. Then, there's that harsh, odd, grating atmosphere that keeps raking past his precious little throat. In and out, in and out. Air will take getting used to, too. He finds himself swallowing it. That makes him feel bubbles in his tummy and digestive system that he's never felt before. He can't move them out like we can. They can hurt. That takes getting used to, too.

The world is busy. There are all sorts of smells, sounds, lights, and movement movement movement! He is passed around. He is coddled and kissed. He is goo-gooed at. He makes noises himself, and these are frightening. And for the first time in his life he feels the pang of hunger.

Oh that pang. It is relentless, and it is very uncomfortable. Around that feeling he will gauge all his earliest behavior. And despite all this stimulus, and this new experience he is still set on his old schedule. Things are loud, busy, and raucous during the day. That's comforting to him. At night, the world seems to go quiet. For a person who's spend nine months in a world of darkness and noise this new silence is unsettling. It will also take some getting used to.

Moving within him, too are the beginnings of a whole new digestive cycle. Now his little body needs to take care of the incoming nutrients, sending everything to its proper place. And within there also moves a bane of infant existence. GAS. Bubbles and burps and toots and grumbling and moving and cramping. He isn't used to this either, and quite frankly he doesn't ever want to be used to it, thank you very much. He'd rather be back in his warm, cozy, smothering, dark, wet world. It is seeming like a mistake having come to this world.

He let's you know this by his temperament and his total frustration and aggravation at not being able to tell you anything about what he's feeling. All this poor little guy can do is whimper, then cry, then scream, while these big, pink animals try to figure out what's wrong. All the while he's feeling an overwhelming amount of emotion, which he's also not used to. We mirror his irritation, we mirror his frustration, we cry when he keeps crying, we feel absolutely helpless as much as he, and then, being the adults we are also burdened with the responsibility to do everything right. Our abilities to live and love and forgive are stretched.

But we're human and we are also subject to this world, despite the fact that we are used to it. All you can do is take this little person, hold him, kiss him, change him, cuddle him, support him, smile at him, talk to him, and try with all your might to listen to him. It is also important to forgive yourself for thinking that this helpless human being is a wrench in your cogs. He is in fact the newest, and most central cog in the clockworks of your life.

You better do right by him or you'll pay, not just with your conscience, but in the presence of Almighty God when He asks you if you did your best while you were commissioned with the raising of one of His greatest spirit children. Looking back then, you'll be able to see that the endless nights, the constant crying, the fussing, the messing, the screaming, the illnesses, the afflictions, the blank "newborn brain" you suffered, the fatigue, the tears, the loneliness, the overwhelming fear . . . all of it was easy in comparison to this account before the Lord.

No wonder we feel the same helplessness, and share in his pain. My poor little son has the patience of Methuselah, while we ourselves often make the mistake of thinking that we are the ones borne of patience. He is the one dealing with the newest of afflictions, almost entirely alone, while we are fighting to become used to each other. I have never experienced something so difficult, so amazing, so challenging, so enlightening, so weakening, and so strengthening as this. Call me crazy, but I want to do it again and again.

I am the newest Daddy, and I am all of these things.

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