Life After Birth:

A few thoughts that have been running through my mind for the past 2 months.

• Will I ever sleep again?
• Will I ever have free-time again?
• How much did you say the hospital bill was?
• Do I already have to go back to work?
• Why does everyone spew advice on how to raise my baby?
• I weigh how much now?

Billions of people have raised kids and millions of children are born every day, so obviously the odds are pretty good that we’re going to do alright. It has quickly become apparent that a baby takes a tremendous amount of attention, effort, and dedication. When you’re expecting, you know this is coming, but there’s no way to adequately predict the level of devotion it takes to cater to one of these pooping, screaming, ravenous, smile monsters.

Having a baby in our life means we have to revisit every single thing that we do, streamline our paradigm, and make sure everything is operating at 100% if not better.

So far things are not too far off from what I expected, but it is A LOT to handle. I’m still doing my best to be an excellent father. Some of the steps I’m taking to ensure success include making sure my wife is well taken care of and that there is a healthy balance of responsibility between us, taking steps to facilitate my current income, and looking at ways to achieve a higher income bracket, budgeting time for exercise, and seizing moments to develop my talents in ways that will potentially generate income (i.e. perfecting photographic techniques, building networks, and finding audiences).

Having babies is ridiculously expensive.

Today it is estimated to cost nearly 300k+ to raise a child to 18 years old and reports are showing that the series of early childhood services like daycare, preschools and kindergartens now cost more than a full college education. 

As a member of the saturated talent market made up of Millennials who achieve a bachelor’s degree, I enjoy few of the benefits the generation before ours might have. We live in a paradigm where paralyzing student debt makes things like home ownership, and financial stability four-letter words to anyone under 40.

My wife and I agreed that we wanted one of us home as a full-time parent. My wife quit her job 8 months into her pregnancy and I became the sole breadwinner for our new family. With this as my first consistent job after college, I am still a newb when it comes to participation in the corporate American machine.

I’m driving part time for DoorDash.

My main salary is enough to pay for the basics (rent, food, gas) but does not leave much for leisure or frivolities. With the strain of diapers, formula, and increases in the consumption of meals, gas, and electricity at home, our bank account has peaked and will be trending down quite soon – I’m sure it’s already doing so, I’m trying not to buy any non-essentials and keeping my fingers crossed.

DoorDash is a food delivery app and one of the newer entries in the gig-economy – companies like Uber, Lyft, AirBNB, etc. People download the app, chose from any of the local restaurants the company has an agreement with and order food from restaurants that do not have their own deliver service, I get a ping on my phone telling me the restaurant and have about 60 seconds to accept the order.

I’m earning $30-40 bucks driving 2-3 hours on Sundays. It won’t be enough in the long run to make much of a dent, but it seems like a worse idea not to do anything at all. I don’t like to leave my wife home with our daughter on a weekend but I try to tell myself this is a way to maintain inertia. Albeit, a big part of me knows I will need either a substantial raise or a different job with a better salary in order to keep this ship afloat.

 

I don’t know if our situation is common or if we are outliers, but I want to be the kind of father that remains involved in my daughter’s life. I want to raise her. I want to be as much a part of her life as her mother. I want to share in taking responsibility for her so I can share in the pride of seeing her grow into a strong healthy and well-rounded adult. I never want to be a father who leaves the task of raising my daughter solely with my wife. I’ll do my best to reserve judgment on those who do, but it is not my way.

While I do my best to take on my share of responsibility, being the half of us who goes to work during the day comes with implicit limitations on how much I can pitch in. When I’m home, I do my best to offer my wife the time she needs to rest, recharge, take a long bath, have a good meal, or just take a nap, and she is never slow to make sure I am taken care of when I need it either.

I think that without that balance we strive for neither of us would be doing as well after these two months with a newborn as we are. I would hope that if you were to ask Mika, she would tell you the same. When we need to switch off we make allowances for one another. And in sharing the load not only are we are both better off, our relationship and respect for one another has grown as a result.

Now, by no means do I want to imply that the experience becoming a parent to our first child is harder for me than it is for my wife, I know my wife sacrifices in many countless ways, but this is all my perspective and I will tell you how it most affects the petty things that I care about. 

As an adherent to the church of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder I have never been short on hobbies or interests. I do everything within my power to limit my entertainment and spend time creating, because in the long run, I will be far more satisfied for having created something than for knowing what happened at the Emmys or on the latest episode of Keeping Up With The Cardassians or whatever. I write, I draw, I animate, I shoot photos, I shoot videos, and I spend quite a bit of time making anything that strikes my fancy.

When I conceptualize my free time, while I am at work for example, I tell myself that tonight while I tend to our daughter and let her mother get some much needed rest I will allow her to fall into a deep sleep and work on X, Y & Z. This occasionally but rarely works out. Granted this is similar to how things work in an ADHD mind. I am quite comfortable with planning, preparing and then allowing the follow through to fade into oblivion like sand through my open fingers.

 

 

There is a part of me that thinks fatherhood may be a sort of twisted gift in this respect, because I am forced at whatever moment I am seizing to be fully engaged, not knowing when the silence will be shattered and when my next free moment will come.

Last night I made a list of the all of the leisure activities I would like to embark on (most of which double as potential alternative sources of income) and there’s no way I’ll have time to complete half of these before I’m 40 if things were to stay they way they are. 

Unless I win the lottery, quit my job, rent a studio, and hire a full staff of creatives, I will only be able to manage a few of these. I’m revisiting my laundry list of creative projects and will prioritize those most likely to pan out and put a lot of others on the back burner.

Sometimes when I am most busy I get the most done.

I don’t know if it’s just a feeling of accomplishment for doing multiple things at once, or if completing one thing spurs on motivation and completion of other things, but I go through seasons of hustle in which everything I do gets done with a quickness and completed to fruition.

I wouldn’t say that is where I am now, but the temporal demands of parenting along with those of work and general living have increased my creative drive in the moments I find to dedicate to them. If I can nail down a few solid blocks of time, cinch my belt and focus, I see good things evolving soon.

My Pants Are Definitely Shrinking!

I am sure of it. It seems that in the past 3 months more and more of my pants and shirts have succumbed to what I can only guess must be the faulty dryers in our apartment complex. The management company for the washers and dryers is notoriously slow to fix anything. I’m guessing they have the heat too high and all the cotton things are paying the price. But whatever the case may be, clothes that once fit comfortably now struggle to fence in the bulge of my wilting frame.

OK, I’ll be honest. I may have put on a couple, if not fifteen pounds. I will have you know that this is average for husbands who’s wives are with child; I googled it.

I have a habit of convincing myself problems I have do not exist until I am utterly overwhelmed and forced to confront them.

I didn’t say it was a healthy habit!

On Halloween, our hotel threw a staff party and I ended up pigging out – more than I have in at least a year. I was stuffed and miserable – I didn’t eat dinner.

Mika was worried because I’ve almost never gone without dinner. I didn’t eat again until the next morning when I stepped onto the scale to find I now weigh 200 lbs – I haven’t been this heavy since high school. But the shock of cracking 200 almost immediately became the impetus for an honest and extreme change.

 

I made a promise to myself a long time ago that if I ever edged past 190 lbs. I would put in the work to get myself into shape. And it looks like that window came and went sometime during my wife’s pregnancy.

I can’t eat the way I’m eating and be the kind of healthy active and engaged father I want to become. Having tasted both sides of the fitness spectrum, I kid you not when I say people react markedly different to a plump version of me than they do to the svelte and toned version of me.

35×34: A health plan.

I’m calling the plan I’ve laid out

I’ll be 34 in March of next year (2017) and my plan dictates that I will then weigh 165 lbs. or less. This is not a frivolous promise, or a pie in the sky dream. This is just me, matter of fact-ly laying down WHAT IT IS. This is my decision, however hard and I’m going to make it happen.

Don’t shit on my dream, let me have this.

This involves a mindful eating plan and will include a regimented activity plan, yet to be determined.

I spoke with Mika about this plan because anything we do with an infant in our lives requires teamwork. I offered to make the same window for her if she would like to adopt an exercise routine, which she has expressed interest in since recovering from the birth of our (now 2 month old) daughter.

At this point I don’t know if I can rely on a regular opportunity to go hiking anymore. I don’t know if I will bike more, or try running again. But I’m sure if we create a schedule we can make it work. Mika is superb at scheduling.

Of course, I have not tested her abilities since our daughter showed up on the scene and we began putting her needs before our own.

You can’t spoil a child before one year old.

Our pediatrician told us you can’t spoil a child when they are very young, in the first year or so. I have no idea if that’s true, or if it’s intended to keep stressed first-time parents from losing their minds during the first few months.

But I’m sure if I shared this advice with my parents or Mika’s parents, or with my coworkers, or friends, everyone would have a different opinion or a different nugget of wisdom to dispense.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m always have bags under my eyes or if I have a sign on my back that says please give me advice, but there is no shortage of opinions on how I should raise my own daughter.

After only a few months I’ve come to take all of the advice with a grain of salt. Occasionally I do come across a nugget of wisdom, and a lot of good advice comes from people who I respect. But I also wade through a ton of dogma, superstition, and nonsense from people who I would never seek advice on for anything, yet who feel inclined to tell me because they have the hindsight of having had a child.

I’ve always been of the opinion that unsolicited advice is one of the most pointless wasting of everyone’s time.

I remember seeing young couples with a baby and wondering why they always looked so beaten and lifeless. It’s not that these people look unhappy, but rather like their life is slowly seeping out.

It’s honestly not that bad. We do what we need to do to take care of her, and it’s tiring because a baby can’t do anything for itself. But there is no animosity. Parenthood is a commitment that you see coming. You either hunker down and hustle, do what needs to get done, or you don’t. And we’ve decided to be brilliant at it.

In two months we’ve watched her plump out, learn to smile, start vocalizing, and even squeak out what sounds like a giggle every now and then.

You can’t imagine what that first smile does to a parent until you see it for yourself.

I’m the guy showing anyone who will look the latest photo of my daughter’s smile, the latest video of her hiccoughing and telling the story of how she pooped in the bath again.

I’m pretty in love with her and yes, your life won’t be the same, but it can be just as great, rewarding, and beautiful if you’re willing to allow it to reshape itself as your kid grows and are willing to work with the new thing your family has become and the new demands that responsibility for a new life entails.