Tonight is the one month anniversary of the birth of my son. I haven’t put much down about the event since the actual birth (we tweeted it and posted the event on Facebook). In a month’s time I’ve learned a few things, mostly about my family-the previous (or existing) one. The most interesting thing that was learned is that all the shit they tell you about how difficult it is  to bring a newborn home and that you’ll go crazy due to lack of sleep, for me, was total bullshit. So far (yeah, I know it’s only been a month…whatever) taking care of a newborn is relatively easy. His needs are simple and there’s typically only three things that make him a crab-ass. One, he’s hungry. Two, he’s gassy. Or, three he needs to be changed cause he flopped his shorts. There’s not much else to the little bugger, it’s a relatively simple formula. Sure, it takes patience to deal with something that expresses needs only through screaming, but I’ve worked for grown men who do the same thing and learned to deflect well.

The surprise revelation, and one that our peditrician said was ‘the secret’, is that other members of the family are the hard part and that babies are, in fact, easy. We made sure that grandparents got a visit in soon after we were home as to avoid what would have been a barrage of phone calls. The only problem is after the initial visit, the mind games started. There were more than a few times when family members thought that they were entitled to voice their opinion on subjects that they had absolutely no right to, or times when a visit turned into a power-play and only ended up creating hurt feelings.

With these things, I try to remember that it was more than 30 years since these members of my family had to bring a newborn baby into their house and that the stress of the experience isn’t so fresh in their mind-not a real excuse but an excuse nonethless. Some of the other instances I’m less likely to forgive because it’s just a case of blind ignorance and I don’t suffer that well. Really, most of the problems that occured happened right away, were dealt with and are pretty much over, everyone seems to be behaving themselves for now.

The last surprise I got was the one tha tdealt with time-or, how I was spending the time I had before my son was born. Oddly enough, I seem to have more time now. It makes me sad because that means I was wasting a lot of it before and I’m not ever sure what I was wasting it on. I’m a gamer, so video games was one thing. I like movies so I was watching a lof of those, too. I’m not playing as many video games in the past month as I was prior to the arrival but I’m watch twice as many movies and getting a lot more done. I set up this blog, have continued improving my web dev skills and am keeping a cleaner house than before.

My father always said that I suffered from lack of urgency, I knew that was true but I didn’t know how much so until it became evident that if I didn’t keep up with things that they’d crush me. I’m hoping to keep the momentum going and see if it might change some bad habits that I’ve accumulated in recent years. If not for me, I’ll do it for my wife-who continues to be my hero, and for my newborn son, who deserves a good role model. Happy birthday Charlie, I love you.