The Joy of Being a Father

Welcome back!

I’ve finally made a decision to start my mornings one hour earlier, so today I got up at 5am sharp. I’ll leave the reasoning for this change and my first impressions of this experiment (I’ve been trying to wake up around 5am for the past week or so) for another post, as today I have some other story to share with you.

 

Our little daughter is 4 months old

And this means to us that her regular naps and feeds are on a more relaxed and flexible schedule now. We’re still on a full alert, so she wakes her mother up and gets her milk whenever she’s hungry, but this doesn’t have to happen every 3 hours now. It’s been a while since we’ve progressed to a practically full night’s sleep – from midnight to 5am, and this week we have relaxed even further by pushing 5am feeding to a later time, up to 6am.

Most of this had been happening without my participation. Since my presence was not required for the breast-feeding, I was usually fast asleep during the night’s feeding or early morning’s. So when I was getting up around 6am, the girl would usually be up as well, and after swapping smiles and kisses I would leave her to go and enjoy my shower.

 

I was in for a suprise

When I woke up at 5am and heard the baby was already awake, I went into her room to find out that she was so full of energy and so happy to see me that she was practically pulsating with joy. Elizabeth now knows how to laugh and her excitement of seeing one of us approaching her cot is incredible. It was a surprise for me to find her in such an alert state so early in the day. What I never realised is that usually she’d be well fed and therefore rather peaceful and sleepy by my 6am awakening. So I naturally thought that’s a norm for her early hours. Boy, was I wrong! :) She’s amazingly active and happy!

I didn’t have any particular plan for the extra morning hour I got today, and so I took Elizabeth out of her cot and we had a wonderful 45 minutes or so of talking to my mother-in-law and showing her our early photos and videos of the baby. Somehow Elizabeth feels so comfortable in my hands! She’s prepared to even stay quiet if you hold her, she would be like an angel sitting on your hands and smiling at you.

 

A happy father I am

I must admit once again. I’m a one happy father! :) It’s a great joy watching the little one grow up on us so quickly, because every morning brings something new – a skill she masters, a face expression she mimics, a sound she learns to make… And it’s so exciting to watch her do all these things, that sometimes we drop everything else and just lie on our bed together – all three of us: Elizabeth, my wife and me. We put the baby between us, and lie there in the sunlight watching our little wonder move and smile and laugh and try oh-so-many-more little things we thought we’d never be so amazed with…

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