Where is the instruction manual?

Okay, so people have been parenting and raising babies for thousands of years, but unfortunately all that wisdom has been lost on me. Now I know why no one ever talks about a fathers instinct or men’s intuition, it’s because it does not exist, at least not with me.  With Ivan being my first baby, and really the only baby I’ve really interacted with (I’ve always avoided holding other peoples babies) I knew I was going to have to learn things the hard way. 

One of the first things I learned is that changing diapers can be quite a task.  I know it looks easy enough, and in reality it is, as long as the baby cooperates, but things like mid-changing pees and poops seem to increase the difficulty level of diaper changing, I’m beginning to think he does it on purpose. 

Another thing I came to realize is that sleep is golden. I don’t know who coined the phrase “sleep like a baby”, but obviously it was someone with very little knowledge of babies.  I guess I already knew that sleep would be at a premium, but I didn’t realize just how much sleep deprivation a newborn can cause.  It didn’t take long before I experienced it firsthand.

Also, I learned the importance of poop.  I have become something of a poop expert without really ever wanting to. Who would have thought in a million years that poop is so important. According to other parents, this is a time in your life when poop all of a sudden is the topic of conversation, not only is it important that he goes, you also have to worry about what time he goes, what color it is and what consistency it is. I know that’s gross right, but somehow this has become my life.  Enough about lessons learned, I could seriously go on forever.

You know how you always hear people say “kids grow up so fast”. Well, they aren’t lying. Seems like every weekend we go through his closet and get rid of cloths that from one week to the next he has miraculously grown out of.  Speaking of growing, Ivan didn’t stay little very long. I remember we had to take him to the doctor’s office just one month after he was born, at that time he weighed 9lbs 13oz. at two months he weighed 13lbs, at four months almost 14lbs. and now we wait until his six month appointment.

I can’t believe that my son is going to be six months. It seems like just yesterday he was coming home for the very first time.