3-Month Review

So, we've had a kid for three months now. Time to reflect. I certainly had a lot of ideas about what having a kid would be like. It is neat to look back and see how much was accurate.

People always say that your life changes considerably when you have a kid. True, true, true, but it is not as devastating as I thought it would be. The impression I used to get when people would tell me that all of our freedoms as adults would be gone - we would not be able to do the things we loved, and that we would basically be unable to enjoy the life as adults that we have been building for ourselves was that having a child entailed a necessary evil. In addition, we, as I was told, would no longer be able to spend money on ourselves.

This turned out to be true and false. It is true that life is very different now. Our schedules are different, and the ability of us to leave on a dime and do whatever we want whenever we want is over. Right now, with her breastfeeding, and especially with her sleeping so long at night (which requires us to crunch up all her eight feedings over less "awake" hours during the day), we (and especially Niki) have to plan each day out. We need to be in a position to feed her once every two hours, and during each two hour segment of our day, Charlie goes through three distinct moods - feeding, happy, and then cranky/sleepy. We have not been to any fancy restaurants lately, but we have gone out to eat. We continue to attend our "trivia night" at Panchos, and we hang out with the folks in the neighborhood like we used to. Niki takes her about once every couple of weeks to Vanderbilt to meet her "Vandy Aunties" for lunch. I do not get as much done around the house at night and over the weekends, because I am too busy either playing with Charlie or helping Niki. Spare money right now goes toward, for the most part, Charlie, or things that impact Charlie's life (new flooring, for instance -she'll be crawling soon).

On the other hand, this is what we WANT to be doing. We really enjoy our time with Charlie. Having true freedom of schedule, and the ability to go to nice restaurants, and getting lots of stuff done during the day is nice, but we'd rather be hanging out with Charlie. She'll only be this way once.

So, in other words - yes, our lives have changed drastically in the last three months, but we are glad it did. We wouldn't have it any other way.

We get a lot of questions about the dogs. We are not ignoring the dogs, but they certainly are playing a background role in our lives right now. As a baby, Charlie really needs the attention (if not direct, at least indirect) of at least one of us all day long. That's just part of being a baby, and is something that I did not fully understand before having Charlie. On the other hand, we pet them when we can, we take them for walks, and they are fairly understanding about this whole baby thing. We will get to interact more with them again when Charlie gets older. After all, and Niki would say that the following sentiment is "anthropomorphizing," but the dogs are family members just like we are, and family members, at one time or another, have to sacrifice when life changes come along. Life will continue to change for all of us, and during our lives, the dogs will go through periods where they get lots of attention, and periods when they don't. In fact, the dogs have a trade-off now. They do not get tons of direct attention, but on the other hand, Niki and Charlie are home most of the day. The dogs, even though we are not blogging about them every day, are still a big part of our lives. Niki and I can't imagine never having a few big black dogs around. As for the cat - well, his life has not changed very much. In fact, it probably has not changed at all. Pacey lives upstairs, and he interacts with us at night. That has not changed at all. Good old Pacey.

Charlie fusses a little, and has her crying fits, but by all accounts, is a pretty easy going baby. I understand perfectly well that we've got it easy on this part. It stinks when she cries, but she responds to efforts to soothe her, so I look at soothing her as a type of communication between the two of us. That makes it more bearable, especially if I can calm her down. Calming a crying baby is a double-sided reward. On one hand, I feel good because I am rewarded with quiet. In addition, there is the satisfaction of having communicated, both physically and verbally with her.

Having an infant is a lot of fun. I seriously can't wait until our next one, and, although Niki and I are not agreed on this point, I am very interested in having a third baby, as well. I really enjoy just spending time with her. She's such a neat kid.