He is here! (as of three weeks ago...)

As you may have notice I’ve neglected the ol’ Blog and Grill a little bit lately, but those of you with even the most rudimentary powers of deduction can probably figure out why that is. My son is born! 

Donovan Douglas Wiles entered the world on November 20^th at 3:09 a.m. at 8lbs 0.01 oz and 21.5 inches, I think, I’ll have to check. After three days in the hospital and a grueling 17 hours of labor, my wife and I became parents.

Now that I’ve had him for a few weeks I can confirm a few things. I forgot who told me this, or if it was even something a friend said or something I read somewhere, but having a child is both the most difficult and the best thing I’ve ever done. My life is no longer my own, but in the best of all possible ways. The time I spend caring for him when he’s fussy or screaming, changing diapers and fixing bottles, can be a chore but not in the way that I’ve viewed chores before, as something I need to do and get through and finish to get back to the things I want to do, like writing or farting around on the internet or finding some way of wasting my time. It’s a necessity the way my basic biological imperatives are; caring for him is as natural as breathing or eating or sleeping, the things we do because we have to but we don’t mind or resent.

Okay, I’m both rambling and digressing, probably because it’s almost three in the morning and I’m only half paying attention to what I’m writing and mostly listening out for his fuss because he’s due to wake up again any minute. I’ll get back to his birth, at least a little bit. I don’t want to share a linear narrative of his birth story, both because that’s such a personal, vulnerable time and, with the exception of the very end, frankly a pretty fucking miserable one, and most of all because my mind isn’t working very linearly right now. I mean, it never is, but now less than ever. And this blog is less about telling stories and more about sharing thoughts and jotting down memories that I can revisit later.

In that spirit, here’s a few things that for me will always and forever remind me of the time that my wife gave birth to a child. First of all, Dunkin Donuts has this sweet black pepper bacon sandwich thingy that I tried for the first time the first morning I spent in the hospital, when I left to run out to Cumby’s for a coffee for Kaite. I like it a lot, and I got I think two more each of the following subsequent mornings. Since we got back from the hospital they’ve been advertising the shit out of that thing, and every time I see the commercial I remember that anticipatory excitement of driving back to the hospital, knowing that any day now, any hour now, it would happen.

By the way, if you are Dunkin Donuts or Cumby’s, you’re welcome for that free product placement.

Next, we have Adam Sandler and Adam Sandler starring as twins in “Jack and Jill,” no doubt the worst movie I’ve ever not-really-seen as it played with the sound off in the background once the labor really began. Actually whatever channel it was set to played a number of terrible movies one after the other, but this was the one that really kicked off that marathon of shit. And so for the rest of my life, whenever I see Adam Sandler in drag, I will remember the seventeen tortured hours I spent helplessly watching my wife in the worst pain of her life.

And finally (probably not really finally, but it’s nice to do these things in threes) Hitmonlee. Like the rest of the universe I don’t even really play Pokemon Go anymore because it just became such a grind towards nothing, but I fired it up a few times in the hospital waiting for the induction to take an labor to begin. The morning after Donovan’s arrival Kaite sent me out for chapstick, and while I was waiting in line with a stick of Burt’s Bees in hand (again, if you’re reading this, Burt, you’re welcome) I launched that app and hatched a Hitmonlee. Obviously it was… not the most significant thing I received that day, but now whenever I encounter a long-legged Pokemon with rubber bands up and down his arms I’ll remember that exhausted pride and anticipatory excitement I felt as I paid the gas station clerk and thought about everything that was still to come for the three of us.

Okay, that’s good for now. He’s starting to still again, and I need to hand him off to Kaite for her shift. I have to get up early tomorrow for my dentist appointment before work.

Cats and Tao

You know, in the early days of my wife's pregnancy, when the idea of having a child and becoming a father was still more abstract, I always figured there would come a time in the final trimester when the full reality of the situation would hit me all at once, when my impending parenthood would become shockingly and suddenly tangible. 

What I didn't realize is that I wouldn't have that epiphany once, but over and over again. Just about every single day. Sometimes more than once. USUALLY more than once. 

I'll be brushing my teeth (for instance) and think, "Holy shit, someday Donovan will start teething! And we'll have to go to the dentist! And then he'll start losing his baby teeth!" (That last point I hope I can manage to deal with… I'm not squeamish about much, but teeth coming out is something I'm REALLY squeamish about.)

And I'm having stranger revelations, too, things you don't typically think about when you think about becoming a parent. I realized the other day that I've probably named my last pet. Maybe not forever, but at least for the next eighteen years, and probably longer, depending on how many more kids we end up having after him.

Right now Kaite and I have two pets, a dog and a cat, and we've talked about the fact that that's what we'll probably always have. She's a dog person and I'm a cat person, as I think I've mentioned here before, and I kinda like that Donovan will grow up with one of each. Ruby is still a puppy, and while Sammy the cat had a health scare recently she came out of it stronger than ever. She's only thirteen, so she's bound to live at least several more years. 

The next cat we get, then, will probably be Donovan's, which means that he'll pick her name – though Kaite and I will reserve the power of the veto, I suspect. The next dog we get will probably belong to Donovan's hypothetical little brother or sister. 

I know there will come a time, of course, when Donovan and whatever siblings we end up producing for him to play with are grown up, off at college, moved away, and starting their own lives. But until then, if I want to name my own pet, I'm going to have to get another fish for my office. And I'm a bit hesitant to do that, after my complete and utter failure to keep my last fish, Robert Frobisher, alive for more than a week.

Not that this bothers me, of course – it's just kinda funny to think about. 

Before I get to this week's dad joke, I wanted to introduce a new segment to this blog. I often think of advice that I'll want to share with my son as he grows older – practical life advice, philosophical advice, and so on. So, I'm calling this segment, "Advice That I Want to Give My Son When He Gets A Little Bit Older But I'm Afraid I Might Forget In The Meantime." 

I think I've mentioned before that I'm not very good with titles.

Anyway, I've been studying the Tao Te Ching lately (Stephen Mitchell's excellent translation, which I highly recommend) and one thing that's really stuck with me is the Three Treasures or the Three Jewels, which are three basic virtues of Taoism that I've taken to heart: compassion, frugality, and humility. It's the last one that I want to talk about today. 

First, let me just clarify that "humility" is actually just the most concise translation of the third treasure. The full Chinese is not a single word but actually a six-character phrase, bugan wei tianxia xian, more literally translated by Mitchell as: daring not to be first in the world.

I feel like a lot of the traits that we would consider, for lack of a better term, traditionally evil come from the opposite of that – from putting oneself first in the world. Selfishness, greed, a disregard for the wellbeing of others, be they individuals, a community, or the greater whole of humanity. Humility is how we avoid falling into these negative patterns of behavior.

At the same time, though, I think that in the pursuit of virtue it's all too easy to fall into the opposite extreme, which like any zealotry can feel virtuous just through the power of its own enthusiasm. Having a respect for all humanity by definition has to include a respect for one's self. Perpetually putting the wellbeing of others before your own is no more fair, just, or right than the exact opposite.

I personally strive for balance in all things. That is why I would advise my son – or anyone, really – when faced with a difficult moral dilemma to simply take a step back and imagine the situation as happening to someone else, an imaginary third party in whom you have no investment. If you were reading a book or watching a movie and the protagonist found himself in your situation, how would you want him to respond? Usually, the answer will be neither with pure altruism at the expense of one's self, nor with pure egotism and self interest, but a third more nuanced path that balances the two. 

Of course this can be difficult, because we ARE invested in ourselves one way or the other, but it's a helpful thought exercise that works for me at least some of the time.

Moving on, today's Dad Joke of the Week comes courtesy of my father in law, and it's his own favorite dad joke. I've heard him tell it countless times (well, at least two or three, anyway).

Q: Why does a chicken coop only have two doors?

A: If it had four, it would be a chicken sedan.   

So if you like that one, thank me for sharing it with you. If you hate it, blame Bob. Either way, thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week!

P.S. Oh, actually, one more thing! I haven't done much self-promotion in a while, so I just wanted to remind you that if you've been enjoying this blog, please consider taking a look at my first novel, Soapy Animals, available exclusively through Amazon. It's not fatherhood related or really all that child friendly, but a couple people have liked it, and maybe you will too! Find it here!

No Halloween Baby

Happy All Soul's Day, everybody!

I don't think I mentioned this before, but my wife was hoping for a Halloween baby. Not really hoping, because it would be ten days early. More like hoping the same way that, when you buy a Powerball ticket, you're hoping that you're gonna win. Halloween is her favorite holiday and probably my second (after Arbor Day) and we already have about a zillion November birthdays in the family, including mine, so October 31^st would have been kinda neat.

But it's come and gone now, so one way or another Donovan is bound for a November birthday after all. Tomorrow his due date will be one week out… for what that's worth. I was two weeks late myself, so I'm prepared for him to follow in his father's footsteps. Though of course I hope he won't. Kaite is squarely in the "I'm so done with this" phase of the pregnancy, and I hate seeing her in this kind of discomfort. Plus, you know, we really want a baby.

Have you ever heard the old wives tale that girls come early and boys come late? I could have sworn that was a thing, but since the pregnancy began no one that I've said that to has any idea what I'm talking about. 

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about today was this thought that I've had several times now over the course of the past nine months but have never really articulated until now, so here it goes. When you reach a certain point in early adulthood where your friends and former classmates are starting to have kids, the easiest and most natural reaction (besides happiness, joy, etc) is to start feeling old. Even though you know you aren't, seeing so many people, or even ANY people, in your age group moving to the next stage of life is a stark, visceral reminder of the progression of your own aging. Childhood is over, and there's no pretending otherwise anymore in the way we did in college or the years following when our responsibilities began to blossom but hadn't yet taken over our lives.

It's a time of looking back over what has come before, what we've left behind, and what we can never return to. It's a very heavy page to turn. 

I had thought that the impending advent of my own fatherhood would do the same, but in a more extreme, personal way now that it's happening to me. I thought I would feel older and adultier than ever. But what I've found is that the opposite is true. Instead of looking back, I find myself looking forward and reflecting on just how much is still to come. Not just Donovan's babyhood and young life, but his school days, teenage years, and the teacher conferences and inevitable joys and frustrations that come from that. And beyond that, decades into the future, when he reaches the point in his life where I am now and I begin to reflect on becoming a grandfather. As I've said before my own father did not live to see this, but I plan to. 

And thinking about all that makes me feel young… or rather, reminds me of how young I really still am. Before the pregnancy the future was this nebulous and unpopulated unknown, and while of course it still is, being able to see and reflect on all the signposts along the way is an invigorating feeling that shouldn't have taken me by surprise, but it did.

Before I go, here's a classic dad joke for you! A cheeseburger walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve food here."

Ha! I love that one. See you next time!  

A Few Nursery Pics

I'm really sort of a huge dork about this. Lately I have only one default topic of conversation. I can't even go to the town dump without rambling to the dump guy that the reason I'm bringing three carloads of cardboard to be recycled is that my wife and I are expecting our first child, and we just had the shower, and we just finished setting up the nursery…

Speaking of which, the nursery is all set up now! In keeping with the storybook theme we framed the covers of some of our favorite children's books growing up and spent a Saturday hanging them all just right. The final step was putting up the ceiling fans that we bought two years ago and never got around to putting up until just now. My wife's cousin and her husband came over so he could help we with that and what should have been a simple 30 minute task ended up stretched into almost seven hours between Home Depot selling me the wrong equipment and our house's Kafkaesque wiring set up.

But I'll save the details of that for when I launch the Electrician Blog and Grill. For now, I wanted to share some of the pictures my wife took of the end result. So here you go, assuming I'm adding them to this correctly:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, it worked! Pretty cool, huh?

So, just some other thoughts, now. My favorite thing about this upcoming election – which is to say, the only thing about this election that doesn't make me want to barf myself to death – is that now that we're in the final weeks leading up to it, any story about it that I read online or hear on the radio is going to include some variation on the phrase, "With only twenty days left," or however many days are actually left. And for me, this has become (close enough) to a countdown to Donovan, too, since our due date is just one day after the election. 

Obviously the accuracy of this countdown is a bit dubious, but it's nice how quickly my internal monologue can shift from, "Grrrr, Trump," to "Oh yeah, Donovan's almost here!"

Last night I dreamed that we found out that the previous predictions and ultrasounds were wrong, and that we're having a girl instead of a boy. Kaite was so disappointed! So many of my dreams lately – the ones I can remember anyway – have involved either Donovan or my own father. My subconscious is rarely so… unsubtle.

Anyway, I'll leave you as always with Jeff's Dad Joke of the day. This is a good one, my favorite knock-knock joke of all time.

Q: Knock knock!

A:

Actually I realized this doesn't really work without you here to participate. That's too bad. Sorry for the disappointing end to this blog post. For what it's worth, it was Interrupting Cow. I was going to tell Interrupting Cow. If you don't know Interrupting Cow go ask your dad. He'll let you.

See you next week!

Bye!