When your first child is born, you learn to see this world differently. You start noticing some things you thought never existed, you learn to appreciate even the smallest joys, and you wonder about so many things it feels as if you’re growing up all over again. There as so many discoveries to be made, it’s simply amazing!

But one feeling simply overwhelms you with joy: falling in love with your child.

Children Make You Notice

It’s incredible, how many things you start noticing with the birth of your child! From the day one, you are flooded with powerful impressions of every little thing around you which you may have never paid attention to.I remember the day when our little Elizabeth was born. And I think I will remember it for the rest of my life, because the miracle of her birth left me in astonishment. I also had shocked me to see the pain my wife had gone through bringing a new life into this world. I suddenly felt that I love her more than ever, and I was happy to be beside her to comfort her and to hold her hand.

I never thought so many tiny things would matter. I’ve paid attention to every medical observation and comment the staff made. I’ve read through the progress journal as they have been updating it. I have learned to notice even a small change in a baby’s heartbeat just by the sound of it. All of this was very new to me, yet I eagerly learned and processed new information and stayed alert for the whole 8 hours we had spent in the delivery.

From another hand, once the baby is born, you immediately start noticing any possible sources of danger or disappointment. You notice the temperature of the water when preparing a bath for the baby. You notice if it’s too warm or too cold outside, trying to guess how it would make your child feel. You notice things you pack when you’re going away for a weekend, making sure your baby is fully equipped. You do the same even if you’re going for a 15-minutes walk, because anything could happen: your baby may get thirsty, hungry, sleepy, warm, cold or anything else – and you need to be prepared for this.

What you also notice is love. Every morning I walk to our daughter’s room just to kiss her and say hello. She’s well awake most of the time, and now that she’s mastered hugging last week, she hugs me and returns my kisses. When I take her out of her cot and bring her down to our bedroom, I usually put her beside Jane so that she could wake her mother herself. These 5 minutes my girls have together are the best start of any day for both – they smile and laugh, cuddle, hug and kiss each other.

And in the evening, the first thing we do after we get back home, is to kiss our little girl with she sits in her grandmother hands. And then we rush into the bathroom to wash our hands and hug our girl ourselves. You notice love. And you realise suddenly there’s much more of it around you.

Children Make You Appreciate

I can’t say I was completely disrespectful to mothers before. I always suspected it was hard enough to carry a baby for 9 months and then to give a birth. But I never thought it was as hard as it really is! So this made me appreciate the sacrifice every woman makes in order to give a birth.Today, our little girl makes us very happy, and we appreciate every moment spent together. She’s a very keen learner, she grows quickly and she’s happy to play most of the time.

Before Elizabeth was born, we were not sure how it all will eventually work out. But she had won the central place in our family so easily and so quickly, that we can’t even imagine our lives without her being with us. She’s most loved and adored for us, and seeing her unconditional love and happiness makes us appreciate our lives even more.

There’s obviously a different side of how children make you appreciate things: by taking away opportunities! For instance, you appreciate a quiet and romantic dinner together with your better half much more when you have to plan for it few months beforehand! The same goes for any night out or late visit to your friends, because unless you have someone to mind the child, one of you won’t be able to go.

You start appreciating clean tables. You learn to cherish the quiet moments when you don’t hear any squeaky toys. You admire the time when you can be on your own, because you’re not the master of your time anymore… There is a million of tiny things and details you very quickly learn to appreciate! :)

Children Make You Wonder

Oh yes, they certainly do! In the past, we wondered if we were too young to be parents. Then, we wondered whether it was going to be a boy or a girl. Now, we wonder if her eyes are going to stay as wonderfully blue as they are right now. Now, we wonder how soon she’s going to start walking. Now, we wonder what is going to be the first word she’ll say.Children make you wonder about all kinds of things: from guessing what is it that made them cry to finding out what is the latest t-shirt fashion for their age.

You always wonder, how your baby knows you’ve just entered the room. You wonder, whether your little angel realises how big you love is. You wonder, how you baby always can take away any problems of your day with just one smile. You wonder, how you could ever live on your own, without this little wonder which smiles and kisses you back, asks you for a bottle of milk and makes you cry with tears of happiness.

Yes, there are many ways of how children can change you. But if there is love between parents and their children, most of these changes are only for the better. You learn new ways of being happy, and some of them are so simple you’d never believe until you try and see for yourself.

Our little girl has been such an inspiration to us in the past half a year, that I only hope we’ll be able to give her all the love and attention she may need. It’s an exciting feeling we’re going through right now: it’s like falling in love again – falling in love with our little angel.

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I woke up too early, and therefore was the first one to hear when Elizabeth woke up 20 minutes later. I went to her room, and she already was smiling when I entered the room – in the morning, when it’s so quiet in our apartment, she hears your steps and smiles in an anticipation of seeing you and being taken out of her cot for a morning hug.

It’s such a strange and pleasant feeling of hugging her for the first time in the day! She’s still very sleepy, but she recognizes you and smiles back, and hugs you back when you hold her.

I was given a chance to feed her from a bottle. Not that I had never done this before, but this time it was different because she was both sleepy and hungry, and also because previously I was only given a chance to feed her for a while and then hand her back to her mother. This time around, Jane was still asleep and we didn’t want to wake her up.

So I’ve had 15 minutes of feeding our child, and watching her smile as she was eating. I didn’t expect the feeding to be any different from the previous experiences of mine, but it turned into something completely different, something really emotional and unique.

It was really quiet and it felt like there were only two of us in the whole world. I hugged her tightly as she ate, and she hugged me. We were looking into each other’s eyes and it felt like there was some kind of morning magic in the air. We both were grateful for having each other this morning, and we both were happy.

As she was emptying the bottle, she was waking up, growing more alert and smiling even more. Sometimes she would stop for a few moments just to look around and make sure it was still okay for her to eat more. I could hear her breathe and swallow her milk, and felt how she was getting more and more relaxed with every sip of it. Finally, she finished her bottle and just lay there in my hands, still smiling but quickly falling asleep again. I’ve enjoyed a few minutes of listening to her breathing and feeling her heart beat, and then I put her back into her cot.

I couldn’t explain how or why, but I felt closer to my little girl than ever.

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I must confess, I’m absolutely shocked how the mother nature makes a child develop only the most essential skills! Have a look at the list of some new essential skills Elizabeth has just mastered:

• holding her milk bottle with her own hands
  It pleases everyone to see that she’s quite capable of holding her bottle herself. This probably gives her more control over the situation, as she definitely smiles more when she’s holding her bottle.
• pulling the soother out and pushing it back into her mouth
  How cool is that?! Frankly, this was a surprise. We didn’t notice when it happened the first time, so when we finally saw her doing it, she looked so confident and determined that we all laughed. It looked as if she knew how to do it all time along, and simply didn’t feel like pulling the soother out before.So, if there’s anything important she has to say, or simply if she doesn’t enjoy the soother anymore, she simply pulls it out and throws it away. She also looks very funny when she suddenly misses the soother and tries pushing it back into her mouth.
• pulling someone else’s hair
  Oh yes, this skill is definitely a must have for any child. We simply didn’t expect Elizabeth to master it so quickly and so early :) Now we have to be really careful approaching her, cause she waves her tiny hands randomly trying to catch your hair, and when she does, there isn’t much you can do but ask for someone else’s help to rescue.Elizabeth clearly enjoys pulling hair very much: she smiles and giggles, and naturally expects you smile in return. Maybe it is time to finally get a kitten we’ve been thinking about for the past few months? When playing together, it will hopefully keep them both mutually interested and somewhat occupied when the girl catches the kitten and tries expressing her love by gently pulling hair out of the poor thing.

Overall, we’re still incredibly happy watching our little girl grow and become a person. I guess, parenting is really one of the most rewarding periods in your life at this early age. You see your baby grow and learn something new every day, and the more time passes, the more conscious and pleasant relationship you establish with your child.

Elizabeth has plenty of enthusiasm, lots of curiosity, and is very determined in her achievements. I wonder what skill she’s going to develop next? Can’t wait to see her learn something new! I guess that’s what parenting is about ;)

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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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It was so much easier said than done though! What we had found out in just few days was that I’m absolutely incapable of keeping the little one busy for much longer than half-an-hour or so.

I’m totally in love with our little daughter, I absolutely adore her, but after we have:

• smiled at each other and even tried to laugh (she’s yet to master her laughs)
• played together and waved hands
• made few photos of her (luckily she’s not old enough yet to tell me she doesn’t like me taking photos. Or maybe she simply does like it)
• had a very intelligent conversation or two (she’s very talkative and it’s amazing how quickly she learns the intonation. She can go on for hours “talking” to us – so it’s a real pity she does not say any words just yet, we’re so eager to find out what it is she’s trying to say all the time)
• rocked the cradle (a desperate attempt on my part to kill some time and please the girl at the same time)
• played hide and seek (it’s almost as if she feels when one of us is in the room or not, she does not have to see you to know you’re somewhere around)
• drank some water
• spit the soother out few times and made it absolutely clear it was urgent and important for me to go and get the replacement one right away

… and, finally, started crying, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I got really irritated.Funny enough, it’s always an irritation with myself. Somehow I can never blame the little one for her crying. I always know there must be something else we can do to help her, and it’s annoying when various ideas pop up in your mind but none of them work. So I get irritated for being helpless, and just wish I knew better what to do.

I usually admit myself to be a coward and retire. I give up and run for help, so my wife comes along and comforts the little angel and in no time it’s all back to normal again. There’s nothing better for a child than a mother’s hug, I guess.

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Smiling is always good - I just had to say it here. Smiling not only makes you feel physically better, but it quite often triggers some really happy thoughts you never thought you might have. When I see our little angel smiling at me, I feel such an energy boost that I’m ready to tackle almost anything!

For some of us, smiling is the most basic and common physiology thing. Take me, for instance: it’s as natural and as essential for me to smile and laugh as it is to breathe. Smiling helps me cope with my everyday tasks, and it also gives me the necessary support when there’s no one else around me.

But for others, it may take a little while to really get used to smiling. You can’t go wrong here – as soon as you bring the smile on your face, it will eventually take the shadow of any saddness or depression off your heart. It may not work the very first time you try it, but be persistent – it’s really worth it to master your smiles!

There’s always something to smile about! You may be having a hell of a day at work, but a quick peek at your loved ones’ photos is bound to bring a little smile on your face. And when it does, just think quickly – maybe it’s really the time to give them a phone call, hear the voices you love so much, and smile even more? I do this from time to time, simply because I know it will work for me. And it always does. It works magic!

One day I’ll write a list of best things you can improve about yourself to make your future personal growth easy and fun process. Not sure about all the rest items, but smiling is definitely going to be on this list. It is one of the strongest self-motivation techniques everyone of us has.

Read more in: Motivation, Parenting, Personal.

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