Well, it’s the 18th of July and Joshua is 11 days old. It wouldn’t be earth shattering to say that Joshua’s arrival has altered my world. What does surprise me is the way it has altered my world. I’ve heard a lot of dad’s say that the first moment you lay eyes on your off-spring brings a flood of emotions. This didn’t happen for me the way that they said. I’ve been preparing for this moment for 9 months. The greater shock came back then, and since that time I’ve been waiting for this moment with excitement. I’ve experienced other earth shattering events that happened in an instant, this one took 9 months to come along.
The thing that does surprise me about his presence is that the love I have for him grows palpaplibly by the hour. How is it that he seems to grow cuter by the moment? There’s something about his face that is oddly familiar, but I can’t explain exactly what it is. Most Taiwanese say he looks like me, but that’s only because he has white skin and fair brown hair. His eyes were a bright blue soon after his birth, but now they are dark with a slightly blueish tinge.
I remember Damian telling me to disregard the people who say that babies are boring at first because they only sleep and eat. When I watch Joshua trying to move his head or grip something with his hand I must admit that babies are fascinating beings from the get go. I love watching the way his sleeping face contorts into a multitude of expressions.
Another thing that surprises me is the sleep thing. Of course every well meaning parent seriously admonishes you to rest before the birth as everyone becomes sleep deprived. The funny thing is that for the last 2 ½ years I’ve been working studiously and have learned to live with sleep deprivation. But this is something quite different. I can live with 5 hours sleep a night, if they are 5 uninterrupted hours. This is like an hour here, two hours there. Before I could be on auto-pilot a bit, wake up, get dressed, and take the dogs for a walk. Now I’m awoken by a screaming baby. What time is it? When did he last eat? Has he got a dirty nappy? Does Kelly need something?
One last thing, does anyone have any advice about changing nappies? Every time, well almost every time I change his nappy, he pees. And he seems to wait until I have cleaned everywhere, and I’m putting on the clean nappy and then he lets rip with this stream of urine, and it goes everywhere. We are still at the baby hospital, so every couple of hours I come to them with bed sheets, blankets and clothes that are covered in urine. I wonder what they think.
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