life through baby-tinted glasses

I don't know what color that is exactly, but Babies R' Us would have us believe it's only pink or blue.

There was quite a bit of advice I was given (both solicited and otherwise) before Hank was born. Some of it endearing, some of it warnings, and so on. If I were to unfairly boil it down into one main sentiment, however, it would be, "Your life as you know it is about to change. Enjoy it while it lasts." Another blogger put it this way:

"Several friends and acquaintances have recently announced their first pregnancies, and I find myself offering the usual pithy niceties and dull truisms, an aloof veteran patting the backs of the new recruits just before they hoist themselves over the top into the maelstrom of shrapnel and armament. Welcome to the trenches. I hope you don't mind the smell of human excrement."

-www.sweet-juniper.com

(By the way, that post ends up being quite endearing and worth the read.)

Saddled with all of that advice even days before his birth, I don't know that I'd wrapped my head around what this was all going to feel like. To tell you the truth, I was more concerned about my hair-brained dog and her penchant for swallowing small, expensive, rubber things (the rubber things only become expensive when a vet needs to extract them from a small intestine).

Now, of course I had that Hallmark moment when I saw my son for the first time at birth. I thought he was the most amazing ball of squirmy wetness I'd even seen, but that moment was filled with so much emotion that processing it at the time was impossible. With two weeks and three days passed, it's all starting to come into enough focus so that I can relate to some of that advice people gave me.

Indeed, your life changes. What I'm feeling, though, is not really the sort of weight-of-the-world-I'm-responsible-for-another-life-forever sort of thing. I'm also not referring to the same sobering reality a college undergrad feels after graduation when he has to shave every day, go to work and stop acting the fool. You see, that's the sort of life changes I thought people were sort-of referring to in their advice.

It changes you because even the little stuff is not about you anymore. I've had thoughts since Henry's birth that I never could have predicted. For example, I was about to make a somewhat aggressive lane change yesterday and gave it a second thought. I likely could have made it safely, but that little bugger pops into my mind at the most random and often intervals. Rather than considering being deprived of the trappings of our "former life," I'm just happy and content with what our life is now.

So, even now, I'm not sure what advice I'd give to someone else about to suit up for this gig. Maybe just enjoy it for what it is and know that whatever changes come to your life will make you forget what in the hell you used to do with your time.

Besides, what could be more fun than just staring at this goober and watching him make funny faces?