One Month Old

Posted January 16th, 2007 by Sean Williams

Being a bad blogger is a little like being a bad violinist. The only way you’re ever going to get to be a better violinist is if you practice every day and someone once a week or so sits down and tells you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. With a blog, the less you write, the less likely people are to check it, and the less likely you are to get feedback. Also, if you write all the time, you need to edit less because you have a better sense of what the blog will be as you’re going, but if you write once a month, then you don’t know if it’s a journal entry or a short story.

As a bad blogger, you start piling up blog possibilities in your mind. Once a day you think “I could totally just write a blog about this one instance,” but if you don’t write that blog that day, then the blogs remain possible in your head, but become convoluted with the next day’s ideas. It really is a mess.

I have a built in excuse. My wife gave birth to a baby, and I’ve been on hand trying to make sure it’s okay for the last month.

Here is his pic-site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barnabyoliver/

He’s one month old today, and I have been debating the best way to commemorate the, y’know, milestone. I’ve got some stuff to say about early parenting, and I don’t know if it’s universal or specific, but I thought I’d just jot some stuff down today. I intend to blog more, but I will at least do these one month things, a la Dooce

1. You have to get the shit off his nuts. Barnaby’s nuts will try to hide a little shit packet every time he craps, and you’ve got to take care of that.

2. I spent a lot of time worrying about stuff like religion and politics and social constructs. Jordana would make fun of me because I was worried that maybe we watch too much TV, or maybe we swear too much. When you’re just trying to get 6 total hours of sleep out of every 24, and you’re trying to make sure your sons nuts are caked with shit, you find out pretty quickly that none of that stuff matters. You are who you are, changing yourself for some theory of parenting is kinda ridiculous.

3. Even though he’s not really a person yet, even though you think he doesn’t understand stuff, he understands everything and he’s already a person. He doesn’t get the English when you talk, but he gets the point. He can tell when you’re mad at him, and sometimes he can tell when you’re mad at other stuff and he might think you’re mad at him.

4. Everyone has advice. None of it works every time. No one thing works every time. But something out of everything will eventually work. So, even though it all sounds like horse-shit, knowing all of the different methods at least arms you for the inevitable melt-downs.

5. It is possible that I am extremely weak, I have never claimed that I had a strong spirit or a solid character, but the strength of the people around me has been the really shocking thing. The fact that my mom can spend two hours with a baby screaming in her ear and she never once feels upset by it is astonishing.

The fact that I get six interrupted hours of sleep and then need a nap is not amazing, what is amazing is that Jordana gets five and doesn’t.

6. Everyone says that the smile you’re getting is gas. It isn’t. Why the hell do people say that? What are they trying to prove. When your baby is bitching and crying and you pick him up and talk to him a minute and he stares at your face and then, while not struggling or crapping or farting, his face lights up for just a second and he smiles at you, why would someone think it was important to say that’s not a smile?

There are a bunch of other things, but this is about the most time I’ve had in a month to write. As usual, I’ll write more later.