"Calm down a little bit."

I suppose I should be happy. The nightmare that has been the process of finding child care for Eleanor is over (more on this in another post). We found a place we like, they have an opening and we’re good to go.

We’re good to go, right? Right?

So why do I find myself thinking about the next step, and the one after that? I spent about 24 hours in my happy, peaceful place last week before I began to obsess over Eleanor’s preschool and elementary school options. And then I began obsessing about whether or not we need to move to a new neighborhood, sooner rather than later. And then I began obsessing about everything, from whether people like me to what I’ll be having for breakfast tomorrow morning. Did I mention I’ve been having trouble sleeping again?

Eleanor is starting daycare in a month, and I am starting a brand new job in two months.

***

On Sunday afternoon, as our church small group was meeting (as we do every Sunday), I spotted Eleanor across the room. She was running out of milk in her cup, still thirsty. Suddenly, she became terrified that someone was going to offer her water (no one had, by the way). She began to repeat, “No Water!” over and over. This is a (somewhat) typical behavior for her. The phrase repeated phrase gets louder and louder, and it always ends on a panicked rising note. She sounds like a Dalek from Doctor Who:

Every time she gets like this, it’s like she realizes for the first time how little control over her life she has. She clings desperately to this obsessive idea, this panicked tone. And she’ll keep spiraling, ever upward in tone and volume until she’s out of any control she might have had in the first place.

And all this happens in the time it takes me to cross to the other side of a room.

Her panic makes sense to me, even though I find it hard to deal with sometimes. I have a really independent toddler, one who demands to put on her own shoes several times a day. But we’ve got a perfect storm of a situation in which she is preternaturally self-aware but not particularly coordinated. She gets stuck trying to do tasks on her own while being saddled with a realization that there is very little she can do by herself. Man, that must be frustrating.

***

You know, the good thing about being in therapy for the better part of a year is that you start noticing your spirals before you get too out of control. You remember the tools you’ve learned and you consider returning to therapy, if for nothing else than to just clear your head. I consider the fact that I can consider all this a good thing.

***

I cross the room, pick my daughter up, and I talk to her. I tell her that I’m going to get her some milk but that she needs to take a deep breath and calm down a little bit. I take a dramatic, exaggerated deep breath and blow it out, modeling for her. She does it, too, and she smiles.

As we walk to the kitchen, she says, “Calm down a little bit.”

I think she’s talking to both of us.

On Fatherhood: Turning the Tide

Lately, I’ve been delving into fatherhood as an intellectual concept. Maybe it’s because my daughter just had her first birthday, maybe it’s because of the incident I described in my last post, or maybe it’s because it’s summer, and I’m used to thinking about this particular time of year, after the school year is over, as a time of reflection.

As we’ve passed the year mark, I’ve realized that I have no intention, at least for another year, to re-enter the traditional workforce. Though I still struggle with anxiety and insomnia at times, I am happier, more focused and more relaxed than I have been in a long time. Being at home with my daughter is fun and incredibly challenging, and I have been able to find the spaces in the schedule that allow me some necessary alone time. I plan to continue writing, for which I hope to occasionally get paid, but other than that, I’m not looking for a job. Doing what I’m doing feels right for me and my family.

With that realization comes a renewed focus on the apparent untraditional nature of what I do. I am a stay-at-home dad. My wife is the breadwinner for our household, making each of us part of growing minorities, according to Census data and a recent Pew study.

I’ve never been considered a “manly” man and I’ve never felt like that’s an image that I need to live up to. I’m quite comfortable with my role. I’m happy being who I am and doing what I do. I don’t feel like I need to be more of a man, but I find myself bristling when I get the impression that people think I can’t do what I do because I’m a man. If a man or woman thinks I'm weak because I stay home, it doesn’t really bother me. But I do care if people think I can’t do my job well because I am a man.

I’ve written before about how I sometimes get irritated at the assumptions people make when I am in public with my daughter. Now that I am committing to this role for at least another year, I’m feeling the need to be even more vocal, and essentially political, about pushing against the stereotypes.

My best friend sent me a link to a write-up in the New York Times about Kindling Quarterly, a new magazine about fatherhood that started in January. I read the article, bought issue #2, and I read the magazine cover to cover (more on this, and the fallacy of hipster parenting, in another post). I’ve since been sucked into the rabbit hole of online articles about modern fatherhood, feminism and what it means for me to be inhabit the role that I do.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve read so many articles about what it means to be a “dad” that my head is swimming. I’ve also been fascinated by how gendered they are. Though nearly all of the articles have been very thoughtful, they embody their authors’ assumptions about masculinity and fatherhood, whether they’re feminists from Brooklyn or guys who don’t know how to fold laundry writing for the Esquire.

Here’s my takeaway -- the conversation is changing, and for the better. There are more men (and women) talking about how more men are becoming more involved parents and that sharing parenting roles isn’t some kind of emasculation for men. The notion of dad as an occasional befuddled caregiver filling in for mom is being challenged at the same time that women like Sheryl Sandberg are creating the space for successful, assertive professional moms who have caring partners who share parenting duties.

The most visible evidence that the conversation is changing, of course, comes from commercials. Stewing about insensitive, sexist comments I read at the bottom of many an article about fatherhood and feeling the frustration of a hard day with my daughter, I was watching TV during her nap. I was amazed by the following commercial:

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/tide-wows-commercial-treats-dad-normal-human-147970

It’s sad that this isn’t the norm, but it really does mean the conversation is changing; this is a competent dad, who clearly spends a lot of quality time with his daughter. This is such an unassuming ad that you might miss just how important it is. And if you don’t think ads are an indicator of where we are as a nation, or that they have no power to drive conversation about social norms, watch this and read news articles about the ensuing controversy.

The conversation needs to continue. That’s why I will be taking on a new role in addition to this blog as a curator of articles about fatherhood. You’ll see more posts from me on Facebook and Twitter. I hope to amplify the current conversation and add my own voice where I see the need and the space for doing so.

So much of what I do now feels like I’m doing it for my daughter. I want her to know that what her mom does is normal and strong and amazing, and I want her to know that a man can be sensitive and caring and a feminist who’s engaged in his family. I don’t know how long I’ll be a stay-at-home dad, but I do know that me being one is important for my family.

Cutting corners

About three weeks ago, I completed my first half-marathon. I remember the moment I signed up for the Colfax race. It was in October, and I had been suffering from crippling insomnia for a couple of weeks. I was sitting in a bar on a Monday night (my night off from stay-at-home parenting), and I decided that I needed a goal to get back into exercising regularly. It worked, and though I still struggle with the anxiety and insomnia (on occasion), working toward that goal had a huge impact on me getting my life under control.

I loved running that race, and it went even better than I expected -- I finished in less than two hours, a result that I’m pretty proud of. The accomplishment has even led me to consider running a full marathon -- I’m pretty sure I’m going to do it. While I am proud of the work I put into training for the half, I still feel like I cut some corners. In terms of diet and exercise, I feel like I did the minimum I could do to still be successful with my goal. If I train for a full marathon, I’m thinking I won’t be able to cut so many corners -- there’s too much work involved.

Becoming a father has led me to question my predilection for cutting corners, because I’ve realized that it’s really hard to do that as a parent. You are responsible for the health, safety and happiness of another human being. If you really accept the weight of that responsibility, then you tend to go overboard. You feel both more anxious and more happy. You keep the house cleaner. You try to eat better. You drink less alcohol. You get less vocal with your road rage. You reflect on everything that has made you who you are up until that moment that you held your baby for the first time.

Well, at least you try. And sometimes, because of the stress of parenting and, really, the stress of life, you become the worst version of yourself.

I was in Target with my wife and daughter last week. We were all exhausted. None of us had been sleeping well, Eleanor was cutting her first two teeth, and I hate shopping in grocery stores. We had finished with our list, and I was pushing the cart while Katie carried Eleanor. Some dude was walking into the store as I was heading to the cash register. He was staring at his phone, walking slow, so I decided to push my cart quickly in front of him and get through the line and out of the store.

This inconsiderate man decided to pause his phone staring to say to me, “Excuse you,” as if we were in elementary school. I threw an expletive at him over my shoulder as I kept moving, because his passive aggressive comment made me so angry that I responded instead of just walking away. He decided to follow my family to the register and to confront me. I’m not sure what he had in mind, or what he expected to accomplish, but my wife disarmed him with some sort of diplomatic comment and he walked away.

Katie was terrified, and I felt horrible. I wasn’t acting like a Christian with my behavior, and my actions could have put my family in danger.

When you are a parent, and -- I’ll say it -- when you are a father, these stupid alpha male mistakes have horrific potential consequences. My temper endangered my family. That’s an awful mistake to make, and it left me with an indescribable, sobering realization about just how important my actions are now that I am a father. I’ll never forget the confused, quiet look on Eleanor’s face as she tried to process the interaction her father had with some stranger. It still haunts me several days later.

Being a father has led me to try to be the best version of myself, but the process isn’t complete -- it never will be. In another post, I’ll revisit how parenthood led me back to the church and my renewed quest to understand Christianity and to be a good Christian. In the meantime, I’d like to explain how this journey reminds me of John Wesley’s concept of Christian Perfection. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on this. Christian perfection, which is really about the process of becoming a better Christian -- not a perfect one -- is a lot like being a parent. It’s about striving to make the purity of your intention match your actions. You’re constantly trying to get better at it, but you’re a fallible human so you make a lot of mistakes on the way.

I am really fortunate that my mistakes so far haven’t done permanent damage. And here’s hoping that I learn from my mistakes and I strive toward being a perfect parent, even though I’ll never get there. I can’t cut corners on my path to becoming the best father I can be for my daughter.

An open letter to the love of my life and the mother of my child

Dear Katie,

I find it difficult to convey how impressive you are. You are an incredible person, in so many ways and at such a magnitude that I am in awe of you. There is no fanfare for your greatness, which is why I feel like I need to write this and put it on the blog.

You are the Chief Curriculum Officer for a network of seven schools. You breastfeed our daughter four times a day and pump four ounces of milk every day so I can mix it into Eleanor’s cereal. Sometimes, you pump at 11pm, after a long day of endless meetings. You clear your schedule for about 45 minutes to an hour every day so we can have lunch as a family. This is something we wanted to do anyway, but it became a necessity when our daughter began refusing a bottle at four months. You still cook most of the meals in our house (you are a MUCH better cook than I am). And you help me keep the house in order despite the fact that our daughter’s favorite pastime is ripping dvds off a shelf and not putting them back (the nerve of an 11-month-old!).

You maintain a work/life balance that I can’t possibly imagine having to negotiate. You are highly respected within a work culture that values long hours and hard work, yet you advocate for a sustainable workplace and people listen to you. And you work so hard so I can stay home and take care of our amazing daughter, who’s a gift to us both in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

You are an incredible mother. You always have energy, love, and attention for Eleanor in ways that I envy. I love the way you sing to her. I love how you comfort her when she’s upset. I love how you encourage her to try new foods and to get up when she falls.

You also lead a small group Bible study every Sunday -- sometimes, you even provide the snacks, whether it’s baking cookies or making a run to Target for a veggie tray. And did I mention you’re training for a 10K, too? After Eleanor heads to bed, you steal into the guest room for a run on the treadmill, getting ready for the Bolder Boulder.

You are an incredible wife. We have been married almost 10 years (in July), been together for 14 years, and you are my rock. When I started having issues with anxiety/insomnia, after Eleanor was born, you encouraged me to get help. You make a commitment to come home a little early when I have appointments with my therapist. And you let me sleep in a little in the mornings while you get ready to go to work, especially if I’ve had trouble sleeping the night before. You take care of me, when I need it. And you do all of this with a uncommon grace that makes me fall in love with you again and again.

I am so excited that I get to celebrate this Mother’s Day with you, and I feel so fortunate that I have the opportunity to share this life journey with you. We have traveled a long path to parenthood, and I don’t think we would have made it this far without your strength. You deserve every accolade and every kind word thrown your way.

There is no drama in your greatness, which is what makes you great. I wish I had better words. I wish I could really make the world know just how amazing you are, even though those who know you (and many of this blog’s readers do) don’t even need me to tell them.

Happy Mother’s Day. I love you.

--Steve

When do you let them fall?

I never knew that someone can be reckless and tentative at the same time until I met my daughter.

She crawls now, awkwardly. She cruises on our furniture, though she will only pull up if she’s climbing on me. She progresses so cautiously, like she’s rock climbing. It’s like you can see her brain planning the next move -- I’ll lift my leg now, and then I will lift my hand and put it right there and so on and so on.

But sometimes she’s just crazy and I fear for her life.

When I am carrying her and she sees something she wants, she will try to leap out of my arms with no regard for her own safety. Or if she’s standing up, holding onto the couch, sometimes she just lets go. And lately, while I put her on the bed while I get dressed, she seems to think it’s a fun game to crawl to the edge of the bed and peer over. I can’t decide if she just assumes I will catch her, thus preventing the possibility of pain, or if she just doesn’t comprehend the potential consequences.

A session of baby play last week makes me think she views me as both her personal safety net and locomotion assistance machine. She was holding onto the coffee table and noticed one of the tv remotes. It’s small and silver, and she loves to put it in her mouth. She gets really excited about this remote. It’s a symbol of power in the house, I suppose, and she probably thinks it’s magic. Anyway, I decided to experiment by putting it out of her reach in such a way that she would have to maneuver around the corner of the coffee table to get it. I was spotting her, of course, just waiting for her to lose her balance as she tried to get to the remote. Instead, she noticed my hand, grabbed it, and let go of the table to get around the corner. Once she was clear, she let go of my hand, reconnected with the coffee table and lunged for the remote.

She got it. And just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I set up the experiment again. Same results.

It’s an odd position to be in. Sometimes, I feel like she won’t ever try anything new unless I push her. But how does she learn consequences? I can’t just let her fall -- not yet. She’s not coordinated enough to keep from hurting herself. But how will she ever learn to do things on her own?

Part of me is happy that my daughter feels so secure that she just assumes I’ll always be there. It makes me feel necessary in a way I’ve never felt before. But how do you teach your kids resilience? How do they learn to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and try again?

When do you let them fall? How often do you let them fail? Is it too early to even worry about this?

Those who read this blog and others who know me might say I have been known to worry a little too much.

I obsess over my daughter’s naps, her development, her weight (she’s on the skinny side for a baby), her health (she has her first ear infection right now), her lack of teeth and hair, and just about anything else you could possibly worry about when it comes to a perfectly healthy, happy child. During Spring Break, for example, we were staying at my wife’s parents’ house. Eleanor was sleeping peacefully in a crib in a different room than our own. But before I could go to sleep, I just had to go in her room and check to make sure she was breathing. Seriously? I hadn’t done that since she was about three months old. I thought I was past that level of ridiculous, irrational fear!

Well, as I figure this out, I’ll keep spotting my daughter in her quest for independence. For now, I’ll catch her as many times as she needs me, but I’ll try not to get in her way. Maybe she’ll tell me when she’s ready.

P.S. I wrote the first draft of this post on Thursday of last week. In the intervening days, she has learned to go around corners by herself and pull up on some low level furniture. She even crawls up and down the two stairsteps in our house, and she has started to walk a little bit only holding one of my hands. I am in awe of her new skills, and I am having a hard time processing the speed of change. Now, if she could progress like this and still take her normal naps (absent the last three days), that would be great :)

Does it really get better?

Does it really get better?

(No, I’m not talking about the LGBT anti-bullying initiative, which is a wonderful program that I fully support.)

With every struggle I’ve experienced as a parent, I’ve received encouragement from a variety of sources. People are incredibly gracious, and parents, as a group, seem to be extraordinarily empathetic. Every parent I know seems to have a soft spot for the struggles of other parents, particularly those parents who have kids younger than their own.

My daughter is 8-1/2 months old, but I already find myself in the position of veteran among some friends and acquaintances. My heart goes out to every parent (or would be parent) who has a younger baby than I do. I’ve gotten to the point where some of the parents at the library storytime have babies who are younger than my daughter. I hear their struggles, and I feel for them, especially if I have experienced the particular struggle they describe. I know what it’s like to have a baby who rolls over pretty early, only to have the skill disappear for more than two months. I know what it’s like to be anticipating and fearing the transition to solid foods.

In my own struggles, I’ve noticed a recurring refrain among parents with babies/kids older than mine:

“I promise it gets better.”

Does it?

Honestly, that’s one piece of advice that I don’t like to give. I think it’s more accurate to say:

“Parenting is hard. The thing that’s hard to deal with right now may be a phase, or it may just be a part of parenting that you get used to.”

To put it another way:

“It gets different.”

In a way, however, I suppose it really does get better. You become more attuned to your child’s needs, and your child gets better at communicating what her needs are as she gets older.

Every day is new, and my experience of a parenthood struggle has as much to do with me and my ability to be patient, weather change and accept uncertainty as it does with my daughter’s actual behavior. I’d also say that in my experience, every week seems to bring a new phase, or a regression, or a new skill, or a new wrinkle.

All I know for certain is that I love my daughter and that parenting is hard and that each kid is different and that none of us really know what we’re doing and everything about parenting is always changing.

More and more, I think that the key to being a parent is learning to accept change and to not get too freaked out about it.

To be honest, the only thing that’s really getting better is my willingness to accept that fact.

Lessons relearned, or It really does take a village (and other cliches that are true)

Everyone sucks in a vacuum. (Enjoy the pun -- it didn’t occur to me until I actually wrote that sentence that it even was a pun...For what it’s worth, I think parent brain must be worse than pregnancy brain).

I mean it, by the way. I have always been my biggest critic, in everything I have ever done. And despite everyone who tells me that I have the happiest, smiliest baby they have ever seen (and I am not exaggerating), I constantly engage in epic battle with myself -- we’re talking World of Warcraft levels of Sturm und Drang waged in my head -- about how I am doing as a father.

It should be noted: We spend a lot of time together, as I am a stay-at-home dad.*

(*Explanation: This is by choice. I did not lose my job or get sick or anything dramatic. My wife and I always agreed that if we could make it work financially, one of us would stay home when we had a baby. I used to be a teacher, and my wife makes more than twice what I made in that profession. So I’m the lucky one. It really was a no-brainer :)

The hand-wringing and head-banging usually happens when it’s just me and my daughter, hanging out. Or while my daughter entertains herself while I do laundry. Or while I prepare her food. Or while I install cloth diaper sprayers that connect to my toilet. Or while I steal away to reorganize the garage, hoping that the baby monitor stays in range where I can hear when she inevitably wakes from her nap in the middle of my attempt to accomplish the most menial task that is impossible when she is awake.

During the first six months of my daughter’s life, I spent way too much time defining myself as a crappy parent for everything I was doing wrong. I wasn’t holding her enough. I wasn’t giving her enough tummy time. I wasn’t talking to her enough. I wasn’t paying enough attention to her. I wasn’t helping her develop good enough sleep habits. She’s crying because I’m not mommy and she hates me and I’m not meeting her needs -- I can tell by the way she looks at me! And I suck. I’m the worst father in the world.

Then I realized that everyone sucks. When they’re on their own. When there’s no other feedback than the echo chamber inside your own head, you can do a lot of damage to yourself. It took me too long to realize that when other people tell you that your baby looks happy and healthy, you should take that, accept it, and realize that you’re doing the best you can.

I love my daughter. And I know that she knows that I love her (as much as her seven-month-old brain is capable of understanding that). I know because of the smiles she gives me when I pick her up out of her crib in the mornings. I know because she calls me Da-Da-Da. I know because of the joy she brings to other people, and the joy they bring to her. My mom tries to come up and visit from Colorado Springs once a week, and my daughter is ecstatic. She laughs and smiles, and she waves her arms around in happiness whenever Grandma comes over. I know she loves me because she smiles at strangers and she plays with our friends from church. She feels safe because my wife and I meet her needs and love her with all our hearts, even when we screw up.

I’m so thankful for the opportunity to stay at home with my daughter, but it is far harder than I could have imagined. I didn’t expect to have sleep issues and experience the level of anxiety that I do about pretty much everything related to my daughter. But I have realized that other people -- friends, family, church members -- are happy to help. It gives them joy to be a part of my daughter’s life. She learns from everyone who interacts with her. Everyone makes different kinds of googly eyes at her. They play with her differently. They say different things and say things differently than I do. Me? I constantly ask her questions that she never answers. I’m sure she gets tired of that.

It does take a village. A note to expectant parents: This cliche matters. Every child -- EVERY CHILD -- should grow up in a community that surrounds them with love and engages them with joy. I am so thankful that my daughter has that, through our family, friends and church.

So it may not be Thanksgiving, but I am giving thanks right now. My family couldn’t do this without you. My daughter doesn’t know how to say it yet, but I know she would say it if she could:

Thank you.

Are you getting any sleep?

One of the first things anyone asks a new parent is, “Are you getting any sleep?”

At first, I thought this was a tongue-in-cheek code among parents, because, as most people know, a lot of babies don’t sleep through the night, or even any other time you want them to, generally speaking. Now that I’m entering my seventh month as a parent, I’m realizing that the question may mean more than I thought: sleep is difficult when you have a baby -- when you are a parent -- but not always for the reasons you might think.

My daughter, Eleanor, sleeps better than I do. Now, in some ways, that’s technically true for most parents (babies sleep for 15 hours a day, on average), but to be honest with you, I have a pretty easy baby, at least when it comes to sleeping through the night. She’s been sleeping through the night 95 percent of the time since she was about 5 weeks old.

(Note to parents who hate me right now: please keep reading.)

Now, we’ve had our sleep battles with our daughter -- she’s not the best napper in the world, and she has a hard time falling asleep (another blog post for another time), but I won’t pretend I can even begin to understand what it feels like for parents who spend hours getting their babies to sleep only so they can wake up again 2,3, or 4 hours later, several times through the night.

Despite being blessed with the best baby in the entire world, I don’t sleep very much. I seem to be pushing all my anxiety about being a parent into some pretty crushing insomnia. For the past three months, I’m lucky if I get 6 hours of sleep in a night. On the surface, Eleanor has nothing to do with this problem. She goes to sleep at 7:45 pm or so, gets up to eat around 6 am and goes back to bed until about 8 in the morning.

But me: I struggle with panic attacks that hit right about the time I try to fall asleep, or they hit when I wake up in the middle of the night for no reason. Some nights, I don’t sleep at all.

The first time that happened, in late September, it just so happened that our normally very good sleeper was waking up in the middle of the night and we couldn’t figure out why. This, obviously, interrupted my sleep schedule. It lasted for about a week and half, and then she started sleeping just fine.

But I didn’t. I probably average 4-6 hours a night with several night wakings. It’s beyond exhausting. At first, I felt crippled. The first night that I didn’t sleep (not for a minute), I laid there, waiting for my wife to wake up at 6 am. She got up to turn off the alarm, and I turned to her and said, I need to go to the doctor, and I need to find a mental health specialist, because I can’t do this every night.

The spiralling what if questions that race through my mind are too numerous to capture here, but most of them are about not being the best, most perfect stay-at-home dad that’s ever existed, about not being good at this new job and my daughter suffering because of my personal failings.

There are plenty of things I don’t like about myself, but being a parent puts a gigantic spotlight on all of them, and it feels like there’s nowhere to hide. I’m working on this struggle, and it’s getting better.

I see a therapist every couple of weeks and I take a mild, low-dose anti-anxiety medication to help me sleep (and it still doesn't always work). I'm trying to reach out to people, building up a community through our church and by just being honest and open with people.

One thing I’ve realized as a parent is that I have to remember that I'm not the only with who's having a hard time. I’ve had several other parents tell me that they take medication and see therapists, too. I didn’t know this until I started sharing my own struggles. When we become parents, we assume that other parents out there have it figured out. But figuring it out is relative, and it looks different for each family. We all have our struggles.

I’ve realized that there are people out there who care about me and want to support me and my family. Keeping that in perspective seems to help more than anything.

There are a variety of labels you could slap onto this situation, but here’s the point: it’s ok to seek out help, and it’s ok not to be the perfect parent. I do the best I can for my amazing little girl. If I have to work through my issues with a psychologist and take some medication, that’s ok. I’m doing it so I can be there for her.