I wanted to write a little note on here expressing what I have learned and hope to accomplish since becoming a father. By reading this you may see a side of me that most haven't seen with the exception of a few, namely my wife. She is always saying that I need more sensitivity. Bah! Sensitivity gets you a seat at the Obama's foreign policy meetings and I certainly don't want to be there. I don't think we should apologize for the billions of dollars we pour into other countries or for his lack luster performance in trying to get Iran to verbally commit to not going nuclear during his administration. back to what I was saying...
A father isn't something that I planned on becoming until I was done with school. I was very afraid (yes I will admit it) of fatherhood. My wife will acknowledge that my favorite saying through her pregnancy was "Fear the BELLY" done with humor and a splash of truth; she would smile. So many unknowns surrounded the milestone for my wife and me. I knew I had an idea what a great father was because of my dad; Loving, understanding, and a discipline. These were the three areas that I knew I would excel at until I was in the Hospital room with Kim. She was pushing and then looking at the nurse. She asked the nurse for a mirror. When I heard her say that I thought to myself "Oh my GOD! This thing is coming”. Once the mirror was presented for Kim's viewing. I turned to fix some of the balloons and flowers. The room kind of broke out in a little laughter and everyone was perplexed at what I was doing. I was not ready for Hailey... mentally. Sure you're allowed 9months to get ready but I still hadn't grasped the notion of becoming a dad.
Several days go by and we have Hailey at home. Both my wife and I are tired. The whole feeding thing and the much needed crying kept us up. The uncertainty was still there... I thought to myself "get a routine down and everything will go back to normal". The routine came and it was nice. Hailey was a really good infant. She started to sleep through the nights fairly early in her infant stage. She’s been a huge blessing to Kim and I. Every day we get to watch her grow and develop. We are amazed at her personality. She is very cautious and sensitive like Kim. Hailey is very kind and social. Singing is starting to become normal for her. She really has a good pitch. I think Hailey will be sarcastic like me.
Her every day routine is she wakes up around 7am. I or Kim will get her and put her in our bed. Hailey generally brings 1 or 2 night nights (blankets) with her to our bed. She likes to drape her night night over me as she tries to wake me up to watch TV with her. I allow her to watch 30mins of television while I attempt to wake up and get ready. I get dressed and get her dressed. Kim is nice enough to set out her clothes for the week. So I know which outfit to grab for her (I’m good but not that good). We go downstairs to eat and she watches 15mins more of TV so I can get everything together for her and me. Out the door I go with a little bit of resistance. We head in to her daycare and she waves to all the employees there. They smile and say hi to her. She then goes around her toddler room and gives each kid a hug; if they didn’t meet her at the toddler room door for hugs. When I come home from work she is playing while Kim gets dinner ready. She greets me with “DADA!!” I say “HAILEY!!” (We repeat this exchange for another 1min or 2).
The bad habit she has right now (it’s pretty darn cute). She says “no… no!” while shaking her finger at someone. I don’t mind her doing this if someone is doing something wrong to her but she does it to her mom and me. It makes me laugh but we are giving her timeout for it.
I know that I will make several mistakes with her because I am fairly new to fatherhood but I will have fun doing it. The world is changing not because of the populous but because the leadership in charge of our nation; they were elected by the people because they ran on hope and bipartisanship. They misrepresented themselves and I worry about the future not for me but for my daughter. I’ll continue to pray that God works to right this nation.
Here is a picture of Hailey and Kim.
Here is a video of me trying to catch Hailey singing. Unfortunately, she stopped for the most part when I started to video tape her.
