Worse than a Pet, More than a Toy

Sometimes its hard to come to grips with how to deal with a new little addition to the household. I'm talking about a newborn baby. I've now had one as part of my home for a couple of weeks now and I'm still getting used to how I should think about this newcomer.

Ok, when you have a pet , say a cat, in your house, you know certain things about this pet. You know when they are hungry and thus you feed them or shoo them away if you fed them 5 minutes ago. When they are not hungry, they are generally taking care of themselves. They don't need to wear nappies which need changing but on the other hand they cannot communicate any more than a baby can. All you get are general emotional states like hungry, sleepy, or content.

Alternatively, if you have a toy, you play with it, you touch it, perhaps dress it up and you enjoy how it looks. You don't have any obligations beyond that, it is there purely for your pleasure.

So, from these two opposites, you have a newborn baby. Something that can only give you a vague idea about how it's feeling, sleepy hungry or just generally upset. On the odd occasion you might get content.

Yet this little person also requires continuing maintenance. Nappies need changing, stomachs need filling with warm milk and yes, on the odd occasion he needs entertaining.

All of these things take some adjustment. Learning to deal with a baby who cannot communicate what is wrong is hard. Learning to deal with someone elses waste is well, icky. Learning to love this little thing, is easy, yet learning all these things at once can be hard.

So far, I'm loving it. Yet being the male I get the easy job. The hard part is dealing with all of these issues when you've had little sleep, its 3am and the baby is crying for reasons you cannot fathom. That's where I take my hat off to my wife who despite not having foresight about all this is dealing with all of it as best she can. All I can do is support her any way I can.

To all those contemplating parenthood I say this, know as best you can how you deal with the unknown under adverse circumstances. Then you will know how you will deal with parenthood.

Either way, its all worth it.