The first day: The cutest casserole
Today I became a father. It also happens to be Father's Day, and not to mention one of the best days of my life.
The absolute #1 best day of my life, which is not quite as cliche, might have been back in high school when I had a really, really excellent nap. You wouldn't understand--words can't describe the dreams or how well rested I felt (and maybe I'm a bit biased toward sleep these days), but then words can't describe the experience of my daughter's birth either. "Amazireal" comes close, but it's not in the OED yet. But even then the definition would just be more words, and we'd be back where we started.
So onto another problem: the once-in-a-lifetime Best Day of Peoples' Lives happen all the time. At any future time and date you care to name, drive to the nearest hospital and you will find new parents who just had a profound life-changing experience. You would think these experiences would be a little harder to track down -- prizewinning bass are wilier -- but you follow the signs to post-partem and there they are, like fish in a bucket. No fishing buddy needed.
Maybe that makes childbirth all the more amazing. Just about everyone has children and talks about how amazing it is, and still I'm surprised. But that makes sense I suppose, because of the word problem, which we've already discussed. So we've come full circle--or full flattened-ellipse since it was only one stop.
One final issue. Since I did not in fact give birth myself, there is likely yet another gulf of ineffability that I'm unable to cross. Compared to Heather, I was certainly on the outside. But far more than I expected, I was on the inside too. After all, that was half of my DNA in that baby recipe. And for 24 hours, my thalamus and parahippocampal cortex that were experiencing each painful contraction (to some degree). So on the surface it was just like the videos. But it wasn't like the videos at all--the real life emotional kick took me by surprise, and it changed everything.
I expected it to be like following the recipe from a cooking show. There, you leave room in your expectations for what's missing on TV: the smells and tastes, the pride in the result being partly your creation.
But then, as you pull your casserole out of the oven, a ninja stabs you with a hypodermic, injecting you with adrenaline and oxytocin. No one expects that! Not only does your casserole seem more real--you knew that would happen--but it's also surreal. You're in love with your dinner.
You will find you enjoy staying up all night with it, trying to make eye contact.
The absolute #1 best day of my life, which is not quite as cliche, might have been back in high school when I had a really, really excellent nap. You wouldn't understand--words can't describe the dreams or how well rested I felt (and maybe I'm a bit biased toward sleep these days), but then words can't describe the experience of my daughter's birth either. "Amazireal" comes close, but it's not in the OED yet. But even then the definition would just be more words, and we'd be back where we started.
So onto another problem: the once-in-a-lifetime Best Day of Peoples' Lives happen all the time. At any future time and date you care to name, drive to the nearest hospital and you will find new parents who just had a profound life-changing experience. You would think these experiences would be a little harder to track down -- prizewinning bass are wilier -- but you follow the signs to post-partem and there they are, like fish in a bucket. No fishing buddy needed.
Maybe that makes childbirth all the more amazing. Just about everyone has children and talks about how amazing it is, and still I'm surprised. But that makes sense I suppose, because of the word problem, which we've already discussed. So we've come full circle--or full flattened-ellipse since it was only one stop.
One final issue. Since I did not in fact give birth myself, there is likely yet another gulf of ineffability that I'm unable to cross. Compared to Heather, I was certainly on the outside. But far more than I expected, I was on the inside too. After all, that was half of my DNA in that baby recipe. And for 24 hours, my thalamus and parahippocampal cortex that were experiencing each painful contraction (to some degree). So on the surface it was just like the videos. But it wasn't like the videos at all--the real life emotional kick took me by surprise, and it changed everything.
I expected it to be like following the recipe from a cooking show. There, you leave room in your expectations for what's missing on TV: the smells and tastes, the pride in the result being partly your creation.
But then, as you pull your casserole out of the oven, a ninja stabs you with a hypodermic, injecting you with adrenaline and oxytocin. No one expects that! Not only does your casserole seem more real--you knew that would happen--but it's also surreal. You're in love with your dinner.
You will find you enjoy staying up all night with it, trying to make eye contact.
posted by Dan Sisan at 11:59 PM
1 Comments:
Dan,
I read your article in the Chicago Tribune and before offering any specific advice I want to ask you a fundamental question: Does your wife BREASTFEED your baby? If she does...do you restrict the breastfeeding to a certain time or amount? We have three children and aside from our personal experience, my wife and I have done extensive reading and research on this matter. My wife breasfed all our kids for three years on demand and each of them for the first year ate nothing but breastmilk (not even water). All our kids were all born at home and we co-sleep to facilitate my wife's job. Believe me, I would have to think really hard to remember one sleepless night in the last 8 years of babyhood. As I mentioned above there is a whole line of research supporting all these practices.
In case your wife is (for whatever reason) NOT doing this essential and most natural act of easing your child's life into this world you should start a more productive type of research reading about the myriads of benefits of natural parenting...attachment parenting...
There is a magazine which can lead you to a ton of information and studies in this regard as well as giving you good role models for your parenting experience.
www.mothering.com
www.llli.org
Here is my email in case you would like to get more information/inspiration in this regard.
antonio.iacopino@gmail.com
Sincerely,
Antonio
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