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onequarterjapanese
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Name: Joel
Birthday: 8/13/1978
Gender: Male
Interests: I like reading, playing guitar, loving my wife, creating anything, and trying to grow my soul. I follow Jesus.
Expertise: Not cars.
Occupation: Student
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
10/22/2004
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| New Video of My Daughter Selah
Check it out here.
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| I Feel Carbonated
Last time I posted about some of the woes of being a parent of an infant. Funnily, my mom called me not long after and asked me if I was doing alright. Which I am. I told her that I was fine and that I was just trying to be honest about what was going on. I added that I thought my experiences were probably not too out of the ordinary and that many new parents surely understood where I was coming from. She agreed, but added that most of them don't post their feelings on the internet. I had no argument. I guess I don't mind airing my dirty laundry.
So, in response to the many concerned and suspiciously encouraging responses (which I genuinely appreciated and probably needed), I have decided to post about a more positive element of my life as a new dad. Selah is beginning to smile.
I had a friend jokingly say that evolution taught babies to smile early so their parents wouldn't chuck them out. While that's a very crude way of saying it, I understand. Taking care of a baby that only communicates by crying gets old quick. So this is why I'm so ecstatic that Selah has begun to curl her beautiful lips up into a smile every now and again. Although, it's pretty cute when she sticks her lower lip out in a pout, too.
The other day I was changing her diaper in the morning and she was looking very content. Wiggling and kicking her legs, she then broke into this outrageous smile. Not a little grin, but she gave the kind of baby-smile where she is showing off her gums. And what happened next was so unexpected that I have been brewing on it for days. When she smiled at me, I transformed. It was liquid joy filling me like drink. If you'll allow a rather masculine guy to use this word, I felt sort of "bubbly."
Her joy was my joy. Her laughter transferred to me. I wanted to dance and spin and kiss her forever. As I leaned over her, I talked to her through my chuckles and my eyes even began to water. The sun was coming through the window just right and her eyes (which haven't decided what color they want to be) sparkled. It was like a Disney cartoon. At that moment, she was a princess...my princess. And through this experience I have learned two things: 1) what the joy of fatherhood truly means, and 2) that I'm in big trouble when she finally realizes what her smiles do to me. She could ask for Canada and I would spend the rest of my life scooping the country into my pockets.
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| Big Changes
Okay, so I knew that having a kid was a big change, but I just never stopped to think about all the ramifications of this "single" change. This completely dependent human being obviously changes things like sleep at night, budgeting for diapers, and learning how to properly hold an infant. But I just never thought about the smorgousboard of other little changes: 1) laundry - seriously, Selah has more clothes than me. And she somehow makes them dirty on a rather regular basis. 2) Cabin Fever - I've never spent this much time in my place of dwelling ever. But when leaving home requires as much planning as it does now, I'm pleased that we even get to go to church. 3) Marriage - not only did the sex switch get turned off for six weeks, but now I'm married to a mom. Loving a mother, I'm finding out, is totally different than loving a wife. Support takes on a whole new meaning, and a meaning that I'm not to great at interpreting at the moment. 4) Fatigue - So Selah not only needs holding, shooshing, swaying, rocking, bathing, feeding, and diaper changing 15x a day, but she has had this annoying infection in the skin-fold of her neck which is causing her to cry a lot. So we put ointment and powder on it 3-5 x a day. A friend of ours gave the whole new birth experience the perfect word -- "relentless".
I heard someone say that when you get married, a little part of you dies. And when you add kids, the dying process keeps on a' working. And it's so true. My family is not just Rachel and me getting to do whatever we want whenever we want. We can't move to the Philippines to take courses at an Asian seminary anymore. We are living for more than our own desires and wishes. We have voluntarily invited another human into our fold and now that human is affecting the way we live. Like I said, it was somewhat expected, but who can truly predict the far-reaching consequences of adding another person into your most private spaces.
Welcome to our family Selah.
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