A Year in Review - 2007

I've been reflecting on my year... the year 2007 that is. Did much happen?

I've learned about:

• Swaddling and my complete inability to master it
• How, for the first three or so months of a person's life, getting up at midnight, 3am and 5am oddly becomes expected. However, despite what anyone says, it's never pleasant. You adjust, you adapt... you gain more and more appreciation for your wife who takes all this in stride.
• How, when in pre-natal classes and the teacher informs you that you will at some point have a urge to shake your baby and you think that seems harsh, you understand with full clarity at 4am
• The first time your baby grips your finger, it's the coolest thing
• You're often tired and can't remember not being tired... and this is with your wife doing yeoman's work during weekdays so you can sleep and be somewhat alert for work
• Babies come with stuff, lots of stuff... you go somewhere, you've got a lot of stuff to bring/carry
• My job is to carry stuff
• Thinking of yourself as a parent takes a while... it's fun to say in the abstract but it takes a really long time to really think of yourself as one.

This was going to be a lot longer post but it took me roughly 2 months. I'm working on doing this better... blogs and parenting!

The first Zachary Christmas

The first Christmas. I've been told a lot that the first Christmas with your child is cherishable beyond belief. Well, aside from family craziness, the little Z's first Christmas was very enjoyable indeed. He got rather spoiled from various sources, but not overboard... we were careful about that. I've seen kids with tons of toys and all manner of things. We want Zach to value his toys and possessions, not to just throw toys at him to keep him occupied. I'm amazed at the abilities of some toys today... wheels that will teach him the alphabet, balls that will teach colours, little houses that teach 20 different actions in 4 different languages. It'll be interesting to see how these types of toys affect this generation.

But I digress...

I think the most humbling moment for me, as a parent, was when I was wrapping gifts the other day and when it came to "To" I'd put Zach, or some cute moniker, and then I got to the "From" and wrote down "Daddy"... and it struck me that it was the first time I'd done that in the "from" area. Gotta admit, that was pretty cool.

Our little friend is only 4.5 months old for his first Christmas. This has a couple of bonuses.

First, we don't need to wait until he's asleep to wrap gifts. Second, he doesn't really care what he gets. I was told often, and it's quite true, he'll be quite content with tissue paper or a box. As true as that might be, how many parents, new or otherwise want to be the parent that only gets their kid a tissue or a box for Christmas?

Many a picture was taken... he got to be with both sets of grandparents who absolutely delighted in shopping for him and being with him on his first Christmas. Stories will be written of the first Christmas and we'll tease him about how he was sooooo cute in all his "Baby's first Christmas" clothes, hats, and bibs.

He had a good day... by which I mean in a generally good mood all day long. Enjoyed his book that made a crinkle sound and the teething (4 at once at current count) didn't distress him too much. Him having a good day made our day great.

The first of many Christmas's to come... the insanity of family gatherings, the wonder in a child's eye. Hark the herald indeed.

Be Cool

At the time, I didn't remember being part of the 'cool' crowd. Back in high school or junior high that is... The high school I went to, the cool kids were the money kids. The affluent, the 'already-got-a-car', the expensive clothes and all that. At the time, it seemed that being cool was the only driving force in life for most. I was never particularly impressed or losing sleep that I wasn't in that crowd. Looking back now, it seems so obvious that people were crying out for validation, for acceptance, for people to be interested in them.

I remember my junior high and high school days relatively fondly. I wasn't 'popular' as I remember it... although when I think about it, I had really good friends, I was known in the school for various activities, my teachers (well, most of them) liked me. I learned early on that I had a knack for saying something in such a way that would either make someone laugh or at least smile. Did I desperately want to be accepted? Yeah, probably. Did I grow out of it? Well, I do prefer that people like me than not like me. It just seems more obvious now when people are vainly trying to get validated. Take your MySpace, Bebo, even Facebook. People trying to get validation in a high-school mentality. I think that's why a growing population of people over the age of 30 are engaging more in the social networking stuff. They're trying to get people to like them all over again. MySpace, Facebook... same thing. Get people to be your 'friend', rate your friends' "hotness" level, throw a sheep at someone, list your favourite tv characters and hey, I like them too, let's be best friends!

Don't get me wrong, I like social networking, it's changing the culture in such a rapid fashion and replacing technology at an amazing rate. I have a Facebook page, I think it's fun. Do I engage in all the little things that people do? No. I poke from time to time, I buy 'friends' as 'pets', I play Scrabulous. I had a MySpace page for a while which is even more high-school than the others.

The point is... you spend so much of your youth and childhood feeling pressure to feel that people should like you, that you need constant affection and if you aren't getting that validation that you're a loveable person, then there must be something wrong with you. True esteem comes from within... you can't get it from another person. Not through compliments, not through how much money you've got or how many friends you have, not through sex. You do the best you feel humanely are able to and believe in yourself. That's where the real validation comes from, when you look at yourself in the mirror and say "you know what? I treat people with respect, I like myself, people seem to enjoy my company".

I'd hate to be a teenager again. How will I manage Smidget and any siblings he may or may not have down the road? Just encourage him to be decent to people, to rise above anything that he's not comfortable with, and to like himself. If he's anything then like he is now, he's awfully cute. As long as he remembers that with some humility, all will be good.

Calm before the storm?

Ok, I'm getting seriously behind in my blogging habits and I apologise. Lots been going on lately, mostly at work. However, I don't want to become an illustration of "Cats in the Cradle" so I need to get a better handle on work items so that I'm around more.

Over the summer... actually, right around the time Zach was born, I was succesful in a job competition. In the federal government each job (in theory) is competed for. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it is a royal pain. A job competition (stop me if you've heard it before) involves several steps of evaluation like a written exam, an interview, perhaps another kind of test, reference checks etc... it takes forever. In this case, it took exactly 12 months and 5 days from when the deadline for applications was. Anyway, long story short, I won one of the 5 positions. Coincidentally, I also got a new director at the same time... he started while I was off for a couple of weeks when Zach was born. He has a different approach and pace than I was accustomed to and also came from outside our department. So, getting used to him and a new level has taken some getting used to. Feels like I've always got tons of work to do, no staff to do it, and everything is due yesterday.

This has caused me to be later than previous at getting home... tired when I am there... all time that I could be doing the daddy-thing instead of just weekends (when I'm tired from work as well).

Our little buddy has been remarkably good lately... particularly at the sleeping thing. Most of the last week, with a couple of exceptions, he's slept from 8pm until at least 5am... once until 7am... and yes, we did go in to make sure he was still breathing. He's incredibly alert much of the time and holds his neck up better now... so much so that he's now making use of the Bumbo that was purchased for him. And yes, the feature that gets most commented on is the hair... it sticks straight up and he's got a lot of it. People ask if we've given him a haircut yet but, sadly, no. It's widely entertaining as it'll stick straight up, about 10 minutes after it's washed.

As I said, he's been really good lately, which now makes me a bit nervous... is this the calm before the storm? Are we about to face some horrible stretch of devil child? We've been lucky in that he's healthy, happy, plays with things... sits up in the aforementioned chair...

Now, if he could help daddy with the mountain of snow Ottawa just got hit with in the last few days, I might start reducing those groundings we gave him for waking us up frequently...