A Tiny Light at the End of a Long, Exhausting Tunnel

Ha! I just looked back at a draft of a blog post that I had saved, but never published, entitled "6 Month Observations." All I had on the page was: "Serious question. How the hell are second children ever born?" Apparently I had some strong feelings at the time; and those feelings were that only a goddamned FOOL would ever put himself and his family through this child-raising experience more than once.

It has been more than two months since I started and never finished that post, and just today Adair and I were doing some light brainstorming about when (not if) we might start trying for Baby Row #2.

So, I guess, things have gotten better.

It feels weird to type that, since it's still day-to-day just a dreadfully exhausting endeavor. But with the clarity of being able to look back two months (a full 25% of my daughter's life!) I can say that things are already so much more fun. Baby is sleeping more, eating more, engaging with us more; and a little personality is starting to take shape. She even seems like she might turn out to be a halfway cool person some day. 

Mostly though, I just laugh at her. All day. Everything she does is hilarious to me, and I'm not sure I even know why. In any case, the rest of my life with children is beginning to take shape before me, and it's just the best. 

So, with all that said, let's complain about stuff!

...

Firsts

Baby "firsts" are mostly shit. Babies aren't capable of doing anything remotely fun or cool, (with some exceptions) so every first-time experience in really just an exercise in looking forward to next year. Baby's first Halloween mostly consisted of stuffing her into an incredibly expensive costume that, despite its cost, managed to have all the craftsmanship and care of a Tampa strip club put into its manufacture. Along the same lines, Baby's first pumpkin patch mostly consisted of us snarfing down a few apple cider donuts each and trying to make her give a shit about some penned goats and other livestock. Oh and paying $5 admission for her cuz, farms aint cheap. 

First words? They are a myth. It became immediately obvious to me why people always talk about first words in such vague terms. Babies make constant nonsense sounds, and its obvious that they develop understanding over long periods of experimentation and watching. It's not as simple as saying no words one moment, and suddenly saying words another moment. My girl says stuff that sounds like "Dada" all the time, but does that mean that is her first word? The same goes for steps. My girl can't crawl yet but with my help she has taken all kinds of steps. Which ones were/will be her first? I blame Hollywood for these misconceptions.

Baby's first roadtrip sucked, baby's first wedding sucked, baby's first eclipse, boat ride, plane flight, sleepover...all of them just suuuucked. Baby's entire first Summer sucked. The Summer! Objectively the greatest season. Her's was terrible. Then came September in Oregon! The leaves changed, the air got that first feel of chill, wood smoke started to waft from chimneys! She cried through it all.

BUT. I managed to enjoy all of this stuff anyway! Incredible. There must be something inside all of us that softens the blow of such massive suckage when your own flesh and blood is involved. I think there are a few reasons for this: 

1) You can basically see the future forming, right before your eyes. Before she was born, I never bothered to imagine taking my child to the pumpkin patch or going trick-or-treating. Now that she's around though, I can just spend all my time imagining what it's going to be like: teaching her how to pick out the best pumpkin, showing her my guts-scooping and carving techniques, and then ringing every doorbell in the damned city on Halloween night because trick-or-treating isn't some fun Autumn tradition; it's a you-against-the-world dogfight where the winners are forged of nougat and chocolate and the losers of taffy and raisins.

2) There are some good firsts mixed in with all the nonsense! These few positive experiences are great at allowing you to forget all those previous letdowns. At least in my case, first swim was the BEST. This girl took to the water like she was born for it, and if you know me, you can imagine how pumped I was on that. "Welp, it's the genes. I told you Adair, we are water-folk through and through. This fair child will survive, nay THRIVE, in the forthcoming Kevin Costner Waterworld scenario brought about by Rick Perry and Exxon. DO YOUR WORST, ICECAPS."

3) Despite my cynicism, there is undoubtedly some inherent grandeur in watching a new human do something for the first time. Its a pleasant reminder of where we all came from, our place in the world, and that the rest of life keeps moving irrespective of my thoughts, problems, or the woes of humanity. My baby girl doesn't give a shit about Trump any more than I gave a shit about Reagan. She's too busy trying to dip her banana in taco-flavored hummus and figuring out how to rip that delicious looking power cord out of the wall.

So I guess I'll keep rolling with it, knowing that someday soon we are going to start really having fun. I know for a FACT that her first Christmas is going to be as boring as a baked potato, and she won't even know what's going on, but we'll go through the motions anyway because being a parent is pretty awesome and you might as well get some cute pictures for all your effort.