Balancing School, Work, and Family

I remember back in high school thinking " I have so much to do between school, friends, and work", little did I know that high school time was getting me ready for the real world, and those concerns have transformed into college, career, and family. I currently go to school full time, and work a part time job. Luckily the nature of my part time job allows me to get some schoolwork done while I'm there, so I'm really lucky in that aspect. Family unfortunately seems to always be last in the pecking order, the demands of the boss and professors seem to take precedance. Even when I'm home I seem to be distracted by additional schoolwork, and wrapping up some paperwork from work. Anyone else have this problem, how do you spend quality time with your family amidst the obligations on daily life?

Post partum Depression

When my wife and I first conceived our little boy, we were excited and terrified at the same time. We had no idea how to raise a child, and frankly having children wasn't on our agenda for a few years. Our family has a saying though, "God laughs when we make plans", not to get overly religious, but I believe that God has certain things in store for us, and sometimes our personal plans get in the way of his, and in that tug of war, my money is definitely on God. So during the 9 months that we were waiting for our little way, we diligently prepared the only way new parents know how - frantically! During this time we had  heard of some of the things to watch out for before and after birth, and one of those was postpartum depression. I personally had dismissed this and thought " that won't happen to us", but therein lies that old family saying again, I think God gave a chuckle and thought "sorry, but its another hurdle for you to jump". A few months after Liam came to this  world, my wife and I were having arguments more frequently than usual, and  finally in culminated into a big fight, but from the ashes of that argument we agreed that my wife needed to go see the doctor to see if she may have postpartum depression.

I should explain a few things, my wife was very excited to start breast feeding our new born baby to have that connection with him, and I supported her no matter what she wanted to do with him, I was just happy to have a healthy baby boy. That first night he was wisked off to the NICU, my wife was also going through a hard time after birth, she had been in labor for 37 hours, she had planned on doing all this naturally, but after 30 hours they told her that she needed medicine to take the pain away, because they were already starting to talk about having a c-section. Our OBGYN insisted that they wait and her have the baby naturally. At 37 hours she pushed and Liam came out with the cord around his neck. This didn't allow my wife and I to have that very first bonding moment with our son, but we were just glad that he was safe. I went with our son while my mother-in-law stayed with my wife in her room. I didn't know it, but the birth took a lot out of my wife, she lost a lot of blood, and it was stressful on her body, she essentially blacked out, and wasn't able to feed Liam that first time either. After all that though, things went pretty normally, my wife started breast feeding and pumping on a regualr basis, and little Liam was very healthy and very happy! Unfortunately that little thing called life got in the way, and we had to start going back to school and work. So we made the decision that my wife would try to pump as much as possible, and we would make up the rest with formula, I personally thought that as long as he had a full belly and was a happy boy, I was a happy dad. I didn't realize how important it is  to some women to have that experience with their children to breast feed them, and it made my wife very depressed not being able to breast feed all the time. She tried to hide it, and tried to push it away, but her postpartum depression had manifested, and its something that we have to work through.

Our son is on formula now fulltime, my wife's supply diminished pretty quickly, but he is in the 70% percentile for his weight and 60%  for his height, so he is a very healthy little boy, and my wife does such a good job taking care of him and working with him. But  those negative feelings are still there, and its at times like this that I wish I could understand and cope with my wifes feelings more, so I  could help her through this tough time in her life. I above all always reassure her of my love for her, and reassure her that she is a wonderful mother to our baby boy. I hope that she knows  I really do mean those things, and think the world of her. But those negative thoughts and feelings permeate, and she sometimes feels like she isn't as good as she can be. I wish I could adequately express how much I love and appreciate my wife, and what a great mother she is to our son. She is just so caring and loving towards him, and he really is such a lucky little boy to have her. I'm sure that most every father thinks that way about their baby's mamma! While this time has been trying, I just try my best to be there for her, and reassure her how much she is appreciated! To those fathers who have experience with their partner having postpartum depression please share your experience!

Here is my wifes version of her story:

http://jonandbrittneyann.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-battle.html

Night Terrors

When I was a wee lad I used to have very terrible nightmares. My dad to remedy this gave me an Indian dream catcher. He told me that it would capture all of my bad dreams and leave me only with good dreams. Now seeing as how I was 5 or 6, I believed him completely, and quite frankly it's worked wonders! I never had a problem with nightmares again, and was able to sleep peacefully. Even though  I know there is nothing magical about that dream catcher, I've always had it hanging above my bed, just to remember that experience with my own dad. Now that I'm a father I look towards some of the things that my father did for us, and how I can apply them to my own child.

Lately our son has been having night terrors, or at least what we can assume is night terrors. He usually is such a good sleeper, he goes to sleep easy, and sleeps all night long much to the relief of his parents. But in more recent weeks, he has been waking up an hour after going to sleep absolutely hysterical. He usually sits up and just cries and cries, and when we get him he acts more relieved to be out of his room, than not having to go to sleep. We know and have heard that children around his age can start experiencing night terrrors, and we don't know how to help him, aside from picking him up, comforting him, and putting him back to bed. Some nights its gotten to the point where he's had to come into bed with us, and anyone who has had a 6 month old in bed with them knows that it isn't a pleasant experience.

So that leaves us with what to do? We don't know what to do for him for night terrors, we are most likely going to keep doing what we're doing and hope that he grows out of it eventually. One thing I know for sure is that when he gets old enough to talk and understand certain concepts, I'm going to pass on that old dream catcher and let him know that as long as he has it, no bad dreams will come. It makes me happy to know that I can start that tradition, and pass on that dream catcher that I've treasured so much. To anyone thats reading, let me know what experiences you've had with children and night terrors, and what solutions you have come up with.

Massive update!

I've seen other blogs talking about the "new dad experience" and it seems that many of them fall  short right around the time of  birth, and I can understand why now! Ever since that little child has come into our lives we've barely had a moment to breathe, and we've loved every moment of it. Our littley boy was born on July 3rd, and was almost immeidtaley whisked off to the NICU because he wasn't breathing on his own. He had the cord wrapped around his neck and the doctor had to get that cut quickly, and then the code was called to have him ressucitated. As anyone who has gone through this before knows how scary it is, but we agreed beforehand that we would trust the doctors at the hospital and let them do their work. Our son started breathing on his own after six minutes, and was an incredibly healthy boy otherwise, and from the moment he was born his eyes were wide open, taking in the world. The NICU nurses were absolutely fantastic, and very reassuring. Overall this was a scary first experience as parents, but it made us all the more thankful for such an awesome little boy.
That was six months ago, and being a full time student, having a part time job, and trying to spend every moment with my new little family doesn't leave a lot of time to write, but as any new parent knows thats the norm. Liam is now 6 months old and is now mobile! He crawls from one side of the house to  the other giggling all the way, and he's starting to discover all of  those drawers that he's not supposed to get into to! But he's a fun little boy, and makes every day fun. Every morning when he wakes up he has a big smile for whoever comes into his room to get him, and is a happy smiley boy all day long. Being a new dad really is a unique experience, and I don't think I've ever felt more like a father then the time that  I got pooped, peed, and spat up  on all at the same time, and all I could do is laugh about it. My little boy makes my life  that much richer, and every day I'm learning something new with him and  my wife.
Hopefully I'llstart updating more, and everyone can share their experiences as well. I've recently had to do research for a paper in my english class  about the decrease in the role of fathers in America, and honestly my research shocked me. More and more there are less fathers in the home, and they've given up their fatherly responsibilites. Now I know that divorce and extenuating circumstances happen, but the research was pretty conclusive that overall there are less and less fathers in the home. Now being a child of divorce I know first hand how sucky it can be having only one parent in the home, even though I was raised  by  my father, but this made me of the opinion that  no matter what my wife and I would stay togehter for our children. I'm a firm believer that a child deservest to have 2 parents in the household whether  that be a mom and a dad, 2 dads, or 2 moms, a child needs both of his parents. Not that my wife and I are getting a divorce or would ever consider that, I love my babies mama! She is my perfect sweetheart, and I love her very much! Anyway I'll wrap up this rant, and promis to write more!

Anxiety

She's been having contractions all day, is it time to panic? That's the pits about being the dad, you rely completely on what the mother says. Thoughts?

Childhood vs. Childhood

I can't even remember how this came up today, but we were talking about Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood, and how much I liked it as a kid. Then it got me thinking about all the other shows I used to watch as a child, some of which include: Reading Rainbow, Magic Schoolbus, Darkwing Duck, Chip and Dale, Bobby's world, Ren and Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, and the list could go on forever. Lets face it, the shows from the 90's were the best, they weren't trying to shove knowledge and facts down our throats like some show's nowadays do ( you know the ones), they were clearly marked for entertainment!
Fast forward to today, and what shows do have today? Dora? Diego? Caliou? Just really non-entertaining shows, that try to force children to learn. Now I'm not trying to bash education, I'm going to stress learning to my children a lot, and encourage them in their studies, but I believe that you have to separate education from entertainment. You wonder why kids don' pay attention in school anymore, or get bad grades, I blame lousy television for making them think that learning has to be this roller coaster of excitement constantly. That's my two cents on that subject. As a soon to be dad though it makes me sad to think that my child isn't going to have the same childhood that I had, a simpler one, where Super Nintendo was the shiz, and my friends and I were always trying to build a super cool fort to hang out it. Now kids just stay in and play games over the internet (not to say I don't), and not go outside at all, or read a book unless its on an electronic device. This makes me sound kind of like a hypocrite because I have all these devices and do all these things, but at least I had an awesome childhood!
What is everyone Else's thoughts on this? What shows did you watch as a child? Do you think that cartoons nowadays are ruining children? Let us know what you think, or if I'm just completely wrong and biased!

Fred Rodgers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers

Pregnant Wife's Birthday

We're a family that likes their celebrations, from Halloween to Christmas, we always have something fun on the schedule. As you can imagine this includes birthdays, we usually go all out for birthday parties. One year, when we were dating, my wife had set up a zombie obstacle course in our basement as a surprise party. There was a Nerf gun sitting outside the entrance to our house, and I heard Left 4 Dead music blaring inside, that was an adrenaline rush, especially for a zombie nerd like me. I remember last year we had a BBQ pool party for my wife's 21st birthday party, it was loads of fun, and there was ice cream cake.

My wife, her cat, and her "Momma Poncho" taking a nap!

Fast forward to this year, and she's 8 months pregnant and walking is a struggle at this point for her. I kept on trying to think of fun things to do, but all of them would be hard for a very pregnant girl. So I gave up and asked her what she wanted to do, and she simply said "I want to sleep for my birthday". I laughed and let her do almost exactly that all day (I even snuck off to work for a few hours). I got her some new music books (music nerds can't get enough of them), and then took her to get a premium pedicure (sugar scrub, massage, the works), which I think was pure ecstasy for her! Then we were going to go see "What to Expect When you're Expecting", but she was too tired at that point. So we settled on coming home for a quick nap (which ended up being 4 hours long), and watching "Ever After" followed by more sleeping, and of course nachos.
 I've since told my wife that since we didn't do anything spectacular for my birthday, that we weren't allowed to do anything fun for mine! She just giggled and gave me that knowing eye that she has something sneaky planned, well as sneaky as you can get considering we are going to be having a new little screaming addition to our family by then! Has anyone else celebrated a partners birthday during pregnancy? What did you guys do? Tell us in the comments below!

New Daddy Instincts

I read on an app on my phone the other day, that much like a women, the new dad also has some "fatherly" instincts that start kicking in. I dismissed this thinking "I'm to manly for such girly sounding instincts to clean, and organize the house", boy was I sorely mistaken. My wife had a baby shower the other day at my parents were gone, and seeing as she's pregnant and due any day, the house has fallen into a less desirable state of cleanliness (I'm not blaming you for anything sweetheart[she reads this blog and I have to cover my tracks]). So in an odd flurry of desire to clean, I set to work, thinking "this house needs a lot of work before a baby can reside here". So first thing I did was check something off my "honey-do" list (I'm sure that list needs no explanation), which was to change the air filter in the air conditioning. After that was done I moved the refrigerator that had been hanging out in our laundry room, to the place my wife wanted it, then re-organized the laundry room, again as she had specified (sure they ask our opinion, but in the end we all know its her opinion that counts).

The re-organized laundry room!

Then I picked up all the laundry in the house and did a couple of loads, men can do laundry too! It's not so hard guys, the machines practically run themselves! I sat down for a short breather, then vacuumed the entire house, as my father-in-law and I replaced some doors over the weekend and had left sawdust all over. Then in a real frenzy of "fatherly instincts" I folded all the clean clothes in our room and put them away. At that point I was too tired to attempt something else, but made a list of things that still needed to be done to the house before baby came. That's when it hit me men, the instincts had kicked in, and mother nature was giving me the energy to get it done. I laughed out loud, and realized I'm not above the "girly" instincts that other men get. Bonus for me though, my wife came home and saw all the work I had done, and I was her hero for the day! A happy pregnant wife, makes for an even happier man/daddy to be!
So men, let that be a good experience for you, the instincts will come, and you'll have a whole slew of energy to get these little projects that have been on your "honey-do" list for ages, but have yet to get done. This will also make your wife very pleased with you! Please share your similar experiences in the comment section below, and let us know when your fatherly instincts" kicked in!

Hello's and such, and a pregnant women's self percetpion

Where to begin? The beginning is always a good place! Hello everyone, my name is Jon, and I'm a dad to be. I wanted to start a little blog to share some of my experiences with a pregnant wife (who is as lovely as ever, even at 8 months pregnant) and my first little boy. It's been a crazy ride so far, and I've learned some interesting things, and I've also learned some things I didn't particularly care to know about the female anatomy (my fellow new dads to be will know what I'm talking about). It's my hope that in this blog I can impart some of the things I have learned, and will continue to learn, so that no one repeats my mistakes, and that we can share some laughs at my expense. I also hope to learn some new things from my fellow dad's to be. 

My beautiful wife and I in one of our maternity pictures

Let me start by pointing out one of the obvious things I've learned with a pregnant wife: DO NOT AGREE WITH HER WHEN SHE SAYS SHE IS GETTING FAT! This is a trap, and the proper way to sidestep this trap is to simply say "No dear, you're not getting fat, you're just as lovely as ever". This was a painful lesson to learn. Don't even try to justify the weight by saying "Sweety, its just because you have a baby in your belly", women in general seem to not accept this as an excuse. They see extra weight as just that, extra weight. I've brought my wife to tears (I'm sorry!) by making this mistake. So let that be the first experience to christen this new blog. Dad's to be, women will find any reason to call themselves fat, don't fall into this trap, just re-assure them that they are as beautiful as ever, and bonus points by proving it in bed! you'll be happier for it, and your wife will definitely appreciate it!

Thanks for taking the time to read, and I hope that this is the first of many new dad experiences. Please feel free to post some of your own experiences with this in the comments below!