I know it’s not a year yet, but you get the idea.
This was last October, with Matias four days old.
Oddly enough, I’m typing this in the same position, but he’s in his crib now, probably dreaming of new ways to rearrange his toys all over the living room.
It was around the time this picture was taken that my mom asked me how my life had changed in my 96 hours as a father. I told her that from 10 p.m. on Oct. 4 to 1:02 a.m. on Oct. 5, I had aged about 10 years.
10 months after that conversation, I can see I was exaggerating, but not by much.
Matias has changed me in many ways.
I’m quite certain I’m more boring than I used to be, as evidenced by the fact that I had to ask Jeannie, “Say, honey, what did we ever talk about before we had the baby?”
I am quite certain that I’m more cowar…er, cautious, than I used to be. I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket or been flagged down for speeding in like a year and a half. For those who know me, that’s like Charlie Sheen getting one of those medallions from AA. The three-month one.
I worry more than I did a year ago. No surprise there, right? But sometimes it does surprise me.
I’ve never been easygoing, but this is getting ridiculous. Just look at this beauty of a question I asked Jeannie the other day. “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe we sired one of the top 10 underachievers this town ever saw?”
Seriously, folks, I worries. A lot.
But some changes have been good. Strike that, REALLY good. I think the best change this little man has brought to my life is the fact that I dig the fact that I’m me a little more than I used to.
I have never, ever been a great fan of me. We are not going to delve into that too deeply but I have never been known as the king of self-anything, except loathing. Then in waltzes this boy, 20 inches’ worth of newborn cluelessness and all of a sudden it’s a little harder not to respect myself, and a little easier to walk a little straighter, shoulders back and all.
With all my faults, I love me still, for producing at the very least 50 percent worth of a fabulous little creation: healthy, happy, sociable and parental biases aside, more bee-yoo-tee-ful than a damn rainbow.
Here I go kicking myself in the butt every day for years on end, just for living, and then it turns out that I’m not made of that bad a recipe after all. And what’s even better, I have proof.
Well, not now, he’s sleeping.
Rest assured, when it comes to self-respect I haven’t turned into, well, Charlie Sheen yet. Nor will I.
Because you just know the day I start feeling Sheen-like about my paternal prowess is the day my handsome underachiever pulls a chair from under me (I did that to my mom, at seven), gets all feisty and says to me “Punch ya in the face, a–hole,” (I did that to my dad, at three), or brings back a report card whose highlight is a hard-earned D (I did that to both, repeatedly).
Come to think of it, I might just turn Sheen-like after all. Might need something to ease the pain.
But until then, get that pipe away from me, because I’m already high. High on baby shampoo, Huggies, and the sight of two teeth on each jaw smiling at a purple cow and a green whale.
(told ya I was high…)
Until tomorrow…
Back to U. 