I haven't written anything yet, and as your mom writes more and more, I risk turning the task of STARTING into a monumental chore. So I'm just writing. Something. Anything. I don't really have a plan on how this post will turn out. That is based on advice from your Grandma Jean, who I'm very sad you'll never get to meet in person. She, more than anyone else, gets all the credit for any compliments I've ever received for my writing. I remember as young as 4th grade sitting down with her on the couch to help me edit a writing assignment, spending what seemed like hours trying to fix up a mediocre first draft. Apparently getting help from your mom like that might be considered cheating in today's schools, though I beg to differ. At any rate, Grandma Jean always reminded me "Just start putting words on the page. Don't worry about it being perfect. Just write." So here I am, though my MacBook has replaced the page, just writing.
Hi Junior.
That's not the best name, we know, especially as you're not going to be Shannon Jr. and you're certainly not going to be Jeff Jr or Jeffova, but for lack of a better name, we're going with Junior for now.
It's been fun getting to know you. I'm a little jealous of your mom, because she already has a big head start on getting to know you, whereas I can only occasionally feel your kicks and wiggles, which, from the outside, are absolutely crazy. By the time they got big and regular enough for me to feel them, I think that your mom had kind of gotten used to them, but they still fill me with amazement. I look forward to being able to get to know you in person, feeling your toes wriggling, hearing you giggle, taking you for walks (so your mom doesn't always have to carry you!).
Several of your mom's earlier posts have been about her pregnancy symptoms, and I'll go on record as saying I don't think she was exaggerating or overly complaining. She's been swollen and heartburn-y for a long time, and not getting good sleep, which tends to make folks cranky. I myself haven't been getting good sleep, only because she's up tossing & turning or getting up to pee, and that's just from the disturbance of lying next to her. I'm sure it's much harder to
be her. I'm not looking for sympathy, just verifying her suffering, so that she can tell you guilt-ridden stories in an appropriate number of years. Hopefully this is all a clever evolutionary tactic to get us prepared to feed/change you at all odd hours of the night.
I will write a post about the childbirth classes we've tried going to, but I'll save that one.
This time I want to write about why. Why you're coming to join our family.
As your mother wrote in a previous post, I've wanted to be a father for a very long time. Now that that day is almost here, we're of course filled with excitement, anxiety, anticipating, dread, fear...
There are plenty of books about raising children, but no real instruction manual. How are we going to do this?
From the quotidian things, like changing diapers (I've steadfastly refused to change diapers for any of your cousins...but now I need to learn quickly) and swaddling technique, to more complex topics like helping you deal with frenemies in middle school or navigating the objectively screwed-up world we've provided you with, I don't really have a plan. Then again, I've never been much of a "plan" kind of guy. I'm much better at improvising, so hopefully you don't mind that too much. I have heard lots of advice about how babies and children like routine, which is kind of the exact opposite of improvisation, so i'll do my best to provide a framework of dependability, but really in the end, chaos rules. But I will try.
Your mom and I worry about how we'll be able to raise you, but we also worry about how you'll raise us. We've each had a long time to get used to life on our own, and 5.5 wonderful years learning how to live as a couple (really, from the moment we met, we've hardly spent any time apart). How will our relationship change when we both turn our focus to our sweet, helpless, amazing-but-needy daughter? We don't know. We hope our relationship will stay strong, and I'm dedicated to expressly taking time and mental effort away from you, sweet Junior, and giving it to Mom, because in the end, I think you'll be a happier child with two happy parents. I'm also not too worried that you'll suffer any lack of attention around here. :)
Lucky for us, as I told your mom last night, we aren't exactly big "going to the club" kind of folks. Many of our recreational activities (walks, movies, reading) are fairly family-friendly, and I like her company whether we're out to dinner or doing laundry, so I think we'll be able to find plenty of ways to keep our relationship strong. At the very least, I'm sure that you, Junior, will provide us plenty of laundry to bond over, especially since we're trying to go with cloth diapers!
Biologist and author Sandra Steingraber said something to the effect that "Everyone needs to figure out what instrument they're holding in the Save-the-World-Symphony (StWS), and play it. It doesn't need to be a solo, but everyone needs to play their part." Your mom and I have both made a life of trying to figure out what instruments we're holding, and how best to play them. There are a lot of things that are screwed up with this world, and unfortunately, many of them will likely get worse before (if) they get better. You and your cousins are going to have a lot of difficult challenges to deal with when you get older.
Reading the news and teaching my environmental science class sometimes make me pretty pessimistic about the future. Threats are everywhere: rising population, food shortages, droughts, species going extinct, pollution, bigotry and hatred, and probably the biggest whammy, climate change. At the same time though, there are technological tools to address these problems that we've never had before, and billions of clever minds that have never before had the opportunity to solve any of these problems. And you're part of the solution. You're definitely part of
our solution. I think that the loudest instrument that I'm holding in the StWS is as an educator. It's what I do best. It's how we came to be living at a boarding school. I'm trying to teach people to care, to make a difference, to make the world a better place. Here I can teach in the classroom, the dorm room, or the sports field, so I get a lot more chances to make an impact.
So beyond all the diaper changing and less-fun dad stuff, I'm looking forward to teaching you. I'm looking forward to taking you for a walk in the woods. I want to show you trees and dirt and blue sky. I'm looking forward to climbing our first mountain together, and looking out over the valley below and exclaiming "WOW" before either of us can catch ourselves. I'm looking forward to curling up on the couch and reading a book together, probably over and over and over, before you learn to read on your own and I'll have to pry your nose out of your kindle (version8.9). I'm looking forward to your first dance, giggling with you or giving you a hug because that stupid rotten little boy (or girl) across the dance floor didn't notice how wonderful you looked. I'm looking forward to being proud of how clearly you write and articulate yourself, and how you totally embrace nerdy but cool science-y things, and show up your classmates in math problems. And I'm looking forward to seeing how you'll make the world a better place, in ways I would have probably never dreamed of.
I'm writing this while looking at the "shower record for Deerfield Academy faculty 'first babies'" that came to us at our lovely baby shower a few weeks ago. The list of babies on here goes back to 1943, older than Grandpa Tom if you can believe that (they strangely don't show any dinosaur babies on here). One of the babies on here is now a woman that I work with, and maybe she'll have her own kids in the next few years. The cycle of life is pretty amazing. We don't know how to do this parenting thing, but we'll figure it out. Our moms and dads did. And
their moms and dads did. Going on and on and on, for hundreds of millions of years, back before we were humans or even mammals. Billions of years, if you're willing to stretch the meaning of "mom" or "dad" quite a bit. A never-ending-chain of life. So we'll figure it out. The odds are pretty good we will.
Last week, on a bizarrely warm early spring day, when your Grandpa Tom was visiting but I was stuck grading final exams, I set up my grading table in the quad in front of John Louis dorm to enjoy the weather. In addition to grading, I enjoyed all the neighbor kids running, playing, and making up worlds. Your mom and I are pretty happy that you'll get to grow up here at Deerfield Academy. It's kind of like when I spent an occasional week at Camp Michigania growing up. I was free to run from cabin to cabin, from lakefront to riding area, because Aunt Barb and Uncle Jim felt confident that there wasn't too much trouble I could get into and there were plenty of responsible adults keeping an eye on things. That kind of "free range kids" lifestyle is largely absent from most neighborhoods in this country today, and I'm very thankful that this is a place where it still exists. There will be several other children your age to play with (Sophie, McCrae, Emma, Sigrid, Elliana, plus probably some more on the way), lots of hard-working, responsible, athletic, and smart older students to make good role models (and babysitters!), and plenty of adults that are nurturing, smart, responsible care-takers and educators as well. Not much traffic to worry about, sports to watch/participate in, and a nice little mountain and river to frolic in and explore. It takes a village to raise a child, they say, and we could do a lot worse for you in the way of villages, we think.
Well...I've rambled my way around 13 different topics, but that's kind of how you've got me feeling these days. I feel like I have so much to do, but don't know where to start. I know that life will be totally different in a few weeks (days?), but don't really know how. I want to get everything "ready," but never will.
We'll promise to love you, feed you, keep you safe as best we can, let you roam and explore as much as we can, teach you what we know and let you figure out the rest. It's going to be a good ride.
-Love, Dad
