Isaac's One-Month Review

Reflections on the first five weeks of parenting, and a blog resolution

For the past five weeks, my wife and newborn son and I have spent most every hour in our bedroom, with frequent trips to and from our kitchen to transfer food and empty plates, bottles of water to drink, and cups of hot water for bottle warming. Every now and then, we get out of the house --one or both of us (or, in the case of the Terminix visit, the three of us and grandma) --getting in the car to make some modest errand (Today I checked on my friend’s trash cans), but mostly, we’ve been confined to the house.

This has been enabled by California’s state-funded paternity leave, and we couldn’t be more grateful. I do most of the bottle feeding (in supplementation to breastfeeding), diaper changes, and book keeping (tracking things like feeding start and stop times and poop counts).

As tiring as child rearing can be, I’m encouraged by the educated hope that this bonding time will help my son love and trust me, something with which I’ll reassure myself when I’m despondently watching the clock at work in the midst of a 9-hour day.

What’s been great about child-rearing is just how cute Isaac is. He’s just fun to look at and nuzzle and kiss and cuddle. Even last night when he was fussing for no apparent reason (except what the books say is the height of fussiness, the sixth week), he looked helplessly adorable flailing his pathetic little limbs in a onesie. And he’ll never remember that his pain was our entertainment.

I never thought I’d take so many pictures, but here I am, uploading baby photos daily.

I thought I’d have more free time (so naïve), but there's very little I can do that won't be interrupted.

However, I decided about five minutes ago that it's worth the effort and time to blog every day, in order to journal this unique, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime period.

This blog has heretofore operated under a philosophy I've heard from Dallas Willard. One of his offhand remarks in a talk he gave can be paraphrased as follows:

Have something to say before you look for a place to speak.

I've spent a lot of time on making sure my blog entries were worth reading (save towards the end when I was flat-out bored at work), but have lost sight of the primary purpose of this blog, the record of my life that will aid me in my perspective by mitigating recall errors.

So here's to frequent (God willing, daily) and shorter posts.

As a case in point on quality over quantity, the above reflections on parenthood were stewing on my desktop for a few days as they didn't seem to contain much wisdom. I think I pressure myself with writing for an audience (especially after a glance at my cluster map). Here's hoping what I write will be interesting and, God willing, edifying to you.

Happy 2008

Adam