Just another update

I swear I will punch the next person who says “having a baby sure will change your life”. Really? Do you think I don’t know that? I understand it will change my life…for the better! I know people usually mean well but for some reason I think people get this sick pleasure of pointing out how little sleep you might get and how much you will have to sacrifice. Maybe I am naïve but I fully realize that having a child means you will be sacrificing. Loving someone means wanting to put their needs ahead of yours. Yes, I am sure there will be times I will be grumpy about not getting much sleep but I fully understand that my beautiful daughter needs me way more than I need my sleep. That is all part of the deal. People who go on and on about how hard it is to give, and not get to do what they want to do maybe should have given the whole thing a second thought.

Today, Sam is a week old. Time has flown by. I guess part of it has gone so fast because she was 3 days old before we ever came home. Being at home has been fun but I have to admit, I do feel like I haven’t been pulling my share in relation to taking care of Samantha. We got home Sunday and immediately had to organize some things around the house as we knew we would be receiving a lot of visitors. Monday, I woke up and cut the grass and did other misc things around the house. Tuesday was an all cleaning day for me. I knew I was returning to work on Wednesday and wanted to make sure Lauren didn’t need to lift a finger. I wanted her to only concentrate on Samantha and recovering / feeling better (Lauren did however do a great job yesterday cleaning up some stuff upstairs yesterday…I love clean!). Both of these days I spent more time doing house work than holding / changing diapers / misc stuff. Lauren is so great w/ Samantha. Samantha is so calm w/ her and I know she loves Lauren so much already. I don’t seem to have the same calming effect on Sam however. Sunday night and Monday night Sam slept really well; 2 separate 4 hour blocks. We were very pleased. Tuesday night (night before my return to work) Sam didn’t sleep all that well. She was up every hour it seemed. And, Lauren did a great job of taking care of her every time. Last night was pretty much the same deal. I try to help but Lauren definitely does the lions share. Lauren says that I am being helpful but I just want to make sure I contribute as much as I can and I don’t want to disappoint her (Lauren that is).
It is a challenge to make sure you allocate your time wisely to ensure you can fit in time w/ your family and accomplishing simple everyday tasks you need to accomplish. For example tonight, I need to find a way to “dogproof” our backyard as our dog Buckeye (picture a football, only a little fatter) has been escaping daily. I joke w/ Lauren that maybe one day I’ll get lucky and we wont find him.

Back to the parenting thing… I sincerely want to be a great father. I think it’s responsibility to be a role model for my family and be someone they can all be proud of. I fear some will disagree but I think the proof of a good parent is more of a cumulative measurement. Yes, you could find the most well behaved 5 year old and think their parents are doing it all right. Those are the kids that also grow up and do many things they shouldn’t do and live dead end lives. It may not be fair to blame the parents but good, bad or indifferent…I do. I think it’s possible for good parents to have kids who grow up and stray from the things their parents taught them but I don’t think that is the norm. Teaching your children responsibility, morals, values, work ethic are things that are not easily measured until they are adults. I may be dead before my children put into practice and live all of the things I want to teach them.