One Month of Fatherhood

I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but I suppose I wanted to record my experience for posterity.

My version of the wheel now weighs about nine pounds. She was born weighing about seven and one quarter pounds. She lost almost three-quarters of a pound in her first few days, which means that she's gained well over two pounds in less than a month. That number doesn't sound like a lot until you consider that it represents over twenty-five percent of her original birth weight, which would be like me gaining around 45 pounds in a month. At her age, it makes everyone happy. At my age, it makes people start death watches.

The scale-topper doesn't like to sleep at night. At all. Which makes her exactly like her father, perpetuating that most ridiculous of curses: "May you one day have a child exactly like you!" What other type of child was I going to have? One like the milk man? DNA is funny that way: it likes to replicate itself, and in so doing makes us much like our fathers and mothers in almost every way. This comes as no surprise to biologists and to the great chagrin of rebellious teenagers everywhere.

Life is definitely different now. I'm not sure exactly how it is different beyond the sleep deprivation, but I'll let you know as soon as I come out of this haze.

The last rumination is probably the most obvious: she is instantly and irreversibly loved beyond words.