I am completely smitten with the little guy, and Sunday mornings, when my wife takes our four-year-old daughter to ballet class, he and I like to sit around and watch a little TV together. I try to explain to him why Iron Man and Spider-Man are so cool, and he does his best not to spit up on me after he has eaten. It's a lovely dynamic, really.
Jokes aside, I find myself constantly trying to remember the first time around, when Gabrielle was a baby.
It might be that I couldn't see the forest for the trees back then – meaning I was so stressed out about being a father for the first time that I didn't take time to, you know, actually be a father.
Or it could have something to do with most memories of my oldest child as a baby being completely wiped from my mind and replaced with something more pleasurable, like in Total Recall ( I know, I know. It came out in 1990. I'm getting older. Sue me.).
I honestly can't remember Gabrielle's first smile, or when she first started teething, or even having a conversation with her. All I can remember is being incredibly stressed out about it. That stress was compounded when she was four months old and I started an eight-month parental leave as the primary caregiver. I do remember when she started eating people food, when she started walking, and when she started talking, but the first months of babyhood the first time around are but a mere blur at this point.
So I make things up. It's just easier.
"Did I smile a lot when I was a baby, daddy?' she'll ask, and of course I tell her that she was a delightful kid with smiles for everybody. The truth is, of course, no good, and I realize that going on public record now puts me in danger down the road, but I have a funny feeling I'm not alone among fathers, and that our uptight, nervous nature around the first child's first few months probably has some impact on that.
Or, the lack of concrete memories could just be nature'[s way of fooling you into having another one, and thus propagating the species. I'm more inclined to believe the latter.
Because then, it's not all my fault.
Second child slows things down for parents
Second child slows things down for parents
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- Published on October 8, 2009
- Published on February 6, 2010
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Chris Quigley
The Western Star
With our second child now three months old and starting to become interesting, I find myself wondering how I missed all of this the first time around. For instance, our baby boy Cole smiles, laughs and likes to have conversations with us – that's right, even me, despite the subject matter often reverting to football – even if his enunciation skills need work. For instance, the other day, I know he wanted to compliment me on the nice shirt-and-tie combination I had picked out, but it sounded more like 'goobahdat.' Nice kid, though.
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