Unseasoned Begetter

Infant-Induced Schizophrenia

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:00:00 -0400

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.
Vincent van Gogh

That quote by Vincent van Gogh was stated only minutes before his child started screaming bloody murder and he severed his own ear.

I don’t know how historically accurate that is, but for this post’s sake, let’s say it is.

It is amazing to me how rewarding having a child can be. Often you hear from parents of young children, “Oh, you just don’t know what love is until you have a child.” (Interesting side note; that is actually the most commonly uttered phrase, next to “When are you going to have a baby?”, that people with kids say to their friends without kids just before the friendship terminates.)

But seriously, having an infant child is up their as one of the greatest feelings a human being can possibly hope to experience in this thing we call life. At times, I can look down at my daughter and literally feel like my heart is about to explode inside my chest from the joy that wells up inside when she stares up at me with those big, beautiful, blue eyes. Hands down, the greatest gift that God gave us (next to his son, of course) is a baby’s laughter. The contagiousness of it is insurmountable and can brighten the darkest of days.

Although, when that child is unhappy…it is amazing to me how FRUSTRATING having a child can be. As a father on deck, I was warned about having a daughter and the frustrations that would ensue during adolescence. However, I didn’t get a whole lot of prep speeches about how infuriating an INFANT could be. It probably doesn’t help that one of the first nurses who handled Carolyn reported to us that our baby was a “screamer with a strong set of lungs”.

Fortunately, she doesn’t scream all too often, but the times that she does decide to wail it out, she can push the decibels to a point that make my ears want to bleed. When we start hitting those high frequencies, I can honestly feel my temperature begin to boil as I frantically try to alleviate the problem, if there IS even one. If her diaper is clean, her belly is full and there are no visible indications that she is in pain, then I will put her in her bedroom and walk away.

I feel guilty about doing this at times, but I know that it is the right thing to do. One of the other videos the hospital forced us to watch was one on “Shaken Baby Syndrome”. Now I would NEVER harm a defenseless, infant child nor would I ever advocate it happening. What I CAN admit to, though, is that I can at least understand what could drive a person to commit such a horrible act. It is very difficult to think clearly when a baby is screaming as if they’re on fire, and frustrating beyond belief when you can not, for the life of you, figure out what is wrong. I have to pray every day that God gives me the patience to handle moments like these like a mature adult and to not give into the instinctive impulses of the Id.

To me, the CRAZIEST part of this whole relationship is how rapidly these cycles can occur. I can literally go from the “heart exploding with love” mentality to the “temperature boiling over in anger” mindset, and viceversa, within minutes…maybe even seconds…and I swear I did not have a history of mental illness before having a child.

Anywho, I’m sure someone’s already coined it, but if not, I want to throw it out there; Infant-Induced Schizophrenia. I’ll forward this post to Web-MD.

Photo

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:37:58 -0400

Photo

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 22:35:21 -0400

SIDS

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 22:35:00 -0400

SIDS; a.k.a Sudden Infant Death Syndrome; is one of the leading causes of death among infants one month through one year of age in the United States.

So I’m glad that one of the very last things that the hospital took the liberty of doing before sending two brand new, inexperienced, paranoid parents on their merry little way was force them to watch a video about SIDS. This very informative, half hour video has caused six months of neurosis and counting.

The video, in a nutshell, described to us the many ways that our newborn child could instantly die despite our best intentions and wished us luck in our new venture. Woohoo! As if starting this new chapter of our lives was not scary enough, they basically came in, put a gun to the head of the whole “ignorance is bliss” theory and pulled the trigger.

It doesn’t help that our daughter is such a sound sleeper either (all the parents of children who did not sleep well just cursed me under their breath). We were always waking up (especially towards the beginning) to make sure that she didn’t decide to just go and off herself in the middle of the night by placing our ear right next to her little baby lips.

Just when I felt like we were getting comfortable enough to sleep through the night without having to wake up every hour or so to listen for her breath, she decided that she liked sleeping with a blanket over her face. This was fun the first couple of times it occurred in that it got my adrenaline pumping as if I were jumping from a plane. She especially didn’t enjoy being shaken awake on a couple of those occasions.

Then, again, things were hunkadori for awhile…that is until she learned how to roll over. Now that she’s learned that new trick, she loves sleeping on her stomach. Not that big a deal, right? Parents used to put their babies on their stomachs all the time. Well, apparently, according to the video, SIDS loves babies who sleep on tummies. Welcome back paranoia, my old friend, I missed you.

I don’t want my child to grow up too fast, but it will be a good day when we are out of the proximity of this SIDS business.

What's in a name?

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:04:00 -0400

un·sea·soned - lacking experience and the knowledge gained from it; inexperienced.

be·getter - a male parent

So, yes, I am a dad at age 27, and in my opinion I am WAY too young for this kind of responsibility. I’m still fresh out of college and intend on going back here soon. I still play videogames and read comic books. At the end of the year, I still expect presents from Santa Claus (who I AM aware is really my parents thieving his identity). The point is, I should not be fathering a child yet! Then I look around and realize that half my high school students have kids older than mine and feel like maybe I am making a bigger deal out of this than need be.

The feelings of inadequacy still exist though. I can’t help but wonder what life would have been like if we had taken more precaution and had been able to plan our pregnancy. Would we have been more financially and emotionally prepared to handle the burden of having a child? Would we have been more willing to give up our selfishness?

Selfishness. One does not truly find out how much of a selfish being they are until they learn that they are having children. A million things instantly raced through my mind that would be ruined by having children. For me, I was married to my high school sweetheart after having been together for 7 years prior. We had just arrived at a point in our marriage (2 years in) where we were financially secure enough to spend a little frivolously. I had just been hired on to a new job that doubled my previous salary and we had just returned home from a trip to Scotland. I was honestly living the best part of my life, not to mention the fact that I now had a full blown case of the travel bug. I was already planning our East Coast tour from Virginia to New York for the up coming summer when…BAM! The news came.

In that moment we were no longer financially prepared, nor were we emotionally prepared. For me, the selfishness was the hardest thing to let go of (still working on it to this day). Fortunately, though, (thank god!) with children, there is a 9 month waiting period. There is something about getting 9 months to let that news sink in though that can change a person. It definitely softened me. Every day since Carolyn has been here with us, I feel like I am growing along with her, learning and maturing as she does. So that is what this blog will be primarily about and that is what is in the name.

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:16:00 -0400

Genesis

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:12:00 -0400

“Getting started is always the hardest part,” or so some people say. However, it’s my belief that maintenance may take the cake. Whether you’re dieting, working out, writing your long awaited novel or blogging, after the two week mark it is easy to let it fall by the wayside. Don’t be surprised if my 2nd attempt at the medium falls flat. Now that I got the disclaimer out of the way, though, I guess we’ll move forward and see what happens.

While we’re on the topic of the medium, I want to apologize ahead of time. For me, I feel like blogging is one of the more pretentious hobbies that a person can partake in. It is operating on the assumption that the blogger believes their life experiences are interesting enough that people would want to read about them on their free time. Not that their aren’t interesting people or blogs available out there that are worthy of being read. However, I feel like anytime a person like me starts blogging away, it can carry that stereotype.

This brings us to our final and most important topic. What do I believe is unique enough about my life that I can carry a blog for more than the aforementioned 2 weeks (assuming we make it past that threshold to begin with). Nothing really. I don’t feel like my life is unique in a way that will keep readers hooked with anticipation. What I DO intend on blogging about, though, is balancing the roles of being a father, husband, son, Texan, American, Christian, educator, explorer, fanboy, outdoorsman, artist and cynic in a world that seems to be going slowly insane.

Happy reading.

P.S. Speaking of pretentious, I don’t think I could have picked a more flamboyant title. Unseasoned Begetter..? Thank you Thesaurus. :^)

A self-portrait.

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:33:38 -0400

A self-portrait.