Inactivity due to Activity...

Moving... please standby.  (Oh, and now there's a hurricane coming!!??)  Promise to be back soon. 

The Activities List

Ahhhh, it's been over a week.  I definitely didn't mean to let it go more than a week.  Sorry!  But, here's a quick post to start what will be one of our "features."  This can be a place where dad's share ideas and get ideas for many things, but more specifically, for various activities to engage in that create quality time with your children.  Whether it's short and silly, or longer, more involved and significant projects.  We start with short and silly.

Summer Shadow Time.  Ok, so "summer" is only there because that's what time of year it is, but this is a fun activity to do any time of year to get through some slow nights.  It's pretty simply, shadow puppets and figures on a wall with a flashlight.  However, if you can find a wall that doesn't have a lot of stuff along it and set up a flashlight on the floor that can shine up at it, it can almost create a stage where you and the kids can create life size (and bigger) shadows.  My 5 and 3 year old LOVE this, get so silly and burn tons of energy in a relatively short period of time.  When they stand in front of that light and see their giant sized heads, limbs and bums on the wall, it's quite a riot for them.  They can create shadows as big as the room, which is great for them.  If daddy slips in a hand or foot from behind the light, it can create a giant hand grabbing their shadow, or a huge foot coming down from the ceiling and "squashing the bugs," as we pretended last time.  So, hope you try it sometime.  Simple, free and funny!  

The first few weeks wont be like the rest...

(written 7/21 at 1:12am)Everything that first week is so new, so different.  Its exciting and draining but the excitement gets you through the draining part.  Not only is the baby new to you but the world is new to the baby so it changes from week to week too.  What i remember about our others is how routined and patterned everything seemed.  With our son, there was a feeding every night around 4:00, wich kind of ended up becoming my shift once we mixed in the bottle feeding.  Even now we remember it as "the four-oclock-feeding," it became so regular.  And our daughter, fortunately, started sleeping through the night (a six-ish hour period from about midnight on) by about the end of two months, which was also a pleasant "regular" experience for us.  What i didnt remember is how little pattern there is the first few weeks.  The environment is such an adjustment to the baby that he will change constantly each week that goes on; he can see a bit more clearly, is awake for longer stretches, increases in alertness, can pick out different and new sounds.  And what that amounts too is inconsistancy.  Last night he pretty much didnt sleep for any long stretch and my wife, consequently, got about an hour-and-a-half of total sleep.  Tonight, he was down by midnight and still going strong an hour later (what am I doing up so late?!) something he really hasn't done much at all, yet.  Once that first week is behind you there can be some frustration and difficulty with the inconsistancy which the newborn's generable adorableness will bring you through.  And here's to hoping some of those patterns wont be far behind!

Mesmorizing

It’s neat watching the kids with the baby.  They were so excited.  Of course, all my daughter wants to do is play with him so it’s interesting explaining to her that it will be a while before the baby can play with her and our oldest.  Thinking back to our first child, this is a bit of a let down for fathers, sometimes, too.  We like response.  It’s why we’re drawn to the people we call friends, it’s why we like when people laugh at our attempts at humor.  I remember being excited to interact with the baby.  But when the baby arrives, it’s not able to really interact yet.  Many of the things we’ll do as fathers to a newborn to get a “response” out of, won’t draw a response at all.  More of just a blank stare.  However, this is equally amazing in it’s own way.   

This time around, as we sat with our newborn in the hospital for two days, I pretty much decided I could stare at a baby for hours and be mesmerized (oddly, I also feel this way about low flying commercial jets)!  And of course it is very attached to mommy and that can be hard for a dad to accept at first too, the attachment to mommy that doesn’t seem to be taking place for the father at first.  So realizing that this is natural and the way it’s supposed to be can be helpful to begin with.  The time for a baby’s response to its loving father’s silly faces and tickles is coming soon enough, and it’s amazing.  But don’t let the delay squelch the amazement of a newborn, it’s tininess, it’s meagerness, it’s reliance upon its mother, and you.  The amazement of how a newborn looks that is so much different than at any point in the human lifecycle.  I always kind of felt it was like a mix of old man and alien... in a cute way, of course!  So, as much as you get the chance just stare… for hours… because soon enough, you won’t be able to.

New Addition!

And now there are three… sad to say it's been almost a year since my last post (at least I didn't let it go a whole year), what better time to pick it back up than when going through “new father” all over again.  When you go through it again after it's been three years, you kind of take it for granted.  I feel like we weren't as in to the pregnancy this time or didn't pay as much attention for whatever reason; we've been through it before, other kids take up time, everything else going on in life, etc.  One thing that kept me into it more toward the end was how the kids acted toward it.  They were always asking about the baby, "what is the baby saying," they'd ask daily, or wanting to see mom's belly.  Toward the end I started taking notice more, how big my wife's belly got, watching it move.  It's still just an amazing and mesmerizing thing... there's a baby in there!  You can see it moving around.  I still wish we somehow got some video of a (tactfully covered up) moving belly to share with others and remember years down the road, as you never know if another pregnancy will come.  Either way, once the baby comes there is no loss of attention toward it.  So here we are, again. New life, new parents, an abruptly interrupted schedule and trying to remember how we did it all the first time, just with the two previous babies running all around the house!  

So as the posts start to come again, you'll get a lot of new dad stuff.  Invite someone you know who's going through or about to go through having a newborn to join the discussion for insight and to bring some input from their own experience.  As always, all you experienced dad's out there, feel free to reminisce and share your own tips.  I'll be needing them!    

Everyday Wisdom

I'm not a Patriots fan, but Vince Wilfork, the team's star defensive lineman, has given me at least an ounce more reason to pay attention to my local Patriots broadcasts on Sundays.  After becoming the highest paid defensive lineman in the NFL at 5 years - $40 million, he remains the average man with a pretty standard colonial house in a pretty standard  neighborhood southwest of Boston, complete with his own veggie garden in the back.  In an article by Stan Grossfeld in Sunday's Boston Globe, he had some insightful and real thoughts on family life and fatherhood:

         "When it's my day off I want to relax, but when you got kids your day off really isn't a day off.  They think 'daddy's home, let's catch up.'  It's hard to do, but I try as best as I can."

This brings me to the research that shows how little time the average dad actually spends with his kid(s) each day or week.  I won't create a made up statistic but I know the numbers are somewhat low and kind of sad sometimes when you see them.  Then I inevitably play the game of, "That's not me, is it?"  Sometimes the dad might just work too much, but a lot of times it's because dad isn't really trying "as best he can."  I can tell you, I definitely don't want to be the dad that doesn't try as best I can.

Wilfork adds, "It's tough at times... my kids got so much energy.  I can't sit here and say it's not hard because it is.  But you have to let kids be kids."

What his statement lacks in eloquence, it makes up for in truth.  This is an important realization, that having kids is amazing, but that doesn't mean it won't be tough at times.  What he says is so important, about letting them be kids.  The scary thing is, when we do allow this to happen in a healthy way, it will most definitely interfere with our important "adult stuff."  I spoke with a young man today who has an infant at home and is gearing up to earn his GED and enter college in the next half-year.  After applauding his efforts, I told him point blank, "There are times that you will be frustrated!"  I continued by encouraging him that knowing that going into it can at least soften the blow and help him better plan and negotiate with his family supports to work out a manageable schedule.  Of course I also shared that for how great a sacrifice it is to be a father at times, it can be the most rewarding aspect of a man's life, which he has already begun to understand.  

I certainly don't "know" Vince Wilfork at least not beyond the featured article I read about him in the newspaper.  I know that beyond his humility he does have a pretty sweet truck.  No, not a pick-up, but a custom Freightliner big rig!  But the article probably isn't creating some big facade for him.  Having his wife, who is at most practices and travels to all home and away games, speak openly in the article about their relationship and his family involvement certainly increases the credibility.  I thank him for being in some kind of limelight, yet displaying plenty of responsibility and encouraging myself and fathers everywhere of the importance of spending that quality time with our kids, even when it's tough or there's other things we feel we need to be doing.

 

  

Back on Track

Well, just after writing "Time Crunch," (see below) I go dark for almost 4 months.  Well, good thing we're in the early phases and nobody's reading yet.  But, now I'm back and hoping to get going with this.  Welcome to those I've invited in the last week, check things out, get commenting and hopefully I'll have a couple new posts up to ponder (hopefully even before you read this)!

I can say that the last month has been crazy!  We were gone 4 straight weekends with 5 different destinations and the best thing was, it was all as a family.  While I did have school work due in mid-August and was without my family for a week (visiting my in-laws) I did meet up with them and we were doing awesome stuff all of the other weekends.  I'm thankful we had so many different experiences, saw so many different friends and family members and spent so much time together!  It was awesome to share in the joy that my kids had for both grandparents houses, our nations capital, a wedding, all our friends and "aunties and uncles," and of course, camping in Maine and visiting the L.L. Bean flagship store, which has some great stuff for kids if you're even near Freeport, ME.  We spent over an hour there on the way home, solely having the kids enjoy the neat stuff for them!

Now, we're home and I'm between semesters, so hopefully we can make some headway on the blog.  I look forward to sharing fatherhood with you all!