Anticipation Of Things To Come

I’m not sure how I got my views of what raising a newborn will be like, but apparently they are pretty off.

I realized it when my wife and I were discussing ditching cable. She said it would be great to have at those times our baby won’t sleep and we have to be up with him/her. I told her I’d just play some games on our Wii while I get they baby to sleep…so I won’t need cable.

I guess I kind of thought you just pick the child up when it cries, it stops, you keep it close to you for a bit and then put it to sleep. You see the only experience I’ve had with a baby waking in the middle of the night happened less than a year ago when we had friends in town and I was left with baby.

When he woke up crying I totally freaked out and called Staci to ask her what to do. She told me to figure it out. I did…I grabbed him from his pack and play at a full arms length in case of wetness. When I realized we were all good there I put him on my lap and swiveled in a chair for a few minutes. Then we both fell asleep. It was a piece of cake.

Well, Staci let me know I was lucky…it wouldn’t be so easy…there would be no Wii playing while I have our baby on my chest. Instead there will be crying, pooing, peeing more peeing, bottle filling and more. From there something clicked in my head. Something that has not gone away. Something probably equally as wrong as my first impression. I turned a complete 180.

Right now I’m expecting the first couple months to be a M.A.S.H. style meatball surgery war zone. I now picture our child, due in January, as the king or queen of total chaos. I picture zero sleep, a bunch of crying, pets freaking out, me running around like a fool looking for bottles, diapers and the baby I misplaced.

Staci and I do have a plan for taking care of the baby. I go until 3 A.M. since I can go to sleep at any time but if I wake up a minute early I’m completely useless (fair warning to my employer.) We’ll also have a ton of bottles so misplacing all of them will be hard, but I like the challenge…I think I can lose them all. I misplace things like a pro. I also have a plan for having diapers on both floors of the house so they are always ready to go.

Still although we have plans for the things that I irrationally feel will happen I can’t shake the feeling that the first few months will be M.A.S.H.-like. Super crazy, emotional, scary yet pretty hilarious to the outside viewer. I’m hoping in the next three months I can get another idea of what it will be like stuck in my head. I don’t care if it’s wrong, I’d just like the anticipation to be of a little less chaos.

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