Starting over was never one of my strong suits. I like to get things right the first time around (let me just state for the record that with JAX we definitely got things right the first time… he’s amazing to the nth degree). That being said, I thought starting over always had to be a “bad thing.” But honestly, starting over is not so bad this time around. Starting over is a new opportunity, a way to broaden your horizons and see the world in a way you never thought possible.
As a “young” guy I always had so much going on, I was trying to figure life out, what it was all about, what’s coming next, or how I was going to build my career. Then it became not all about me anymore. It was “I’ve got to take care of a baby” and of course it gets easier as time goes by and you get older and parenting becomes easier. I was able to slow down and appreciate what I had… a healthy and ridiculously happy little boy and was totally OK with putting him first.
And then… Jackson hit two and a half. I spent nights watching him throw kitchen chairs around and sprawl out across the floor because he didn’t want cheese on his macaroni… (the same cheese he ironically had just asked me to put on his macaroni). You would think this kid had learned that Olaf wasn’t a real snowman or something. Life got tough. Days got longer; nights became more and more sleepless. Still, my days were bright because I was so in love with this little guy and because, I knew we had been through so much. I knew that it would just keep getting easier and the answers I was looking for were just around the corner.
That was until I found out I was going to be a dad… AGAIN. I thought things were just calming down. Life’s craziness was just coming down off the climax of a never ending rollercoaster. How the HELL am I going to manage to take care of another human. Honestly, I am surprised Jackson hasn’t packed a bag and gone off to live with Auntie Tricia by now, let alone the fact that he still has 10 fingers and 10 toes.
This time there was no cake with blue frosting or a sonogram with GO PACK GO written across the top. There was no craziness of prepping a nursery (there still somehow has been enough baby clothing coming in to rival Hillary Clinton’s pant suit collection). Things are so much different than they were threeish years ago. Buster and Max are no longer running the roost and I am lucky if I get a few minutes to use the bathroom without seeing tiny little fingers reaching under the door like some sort of real life horror movie.
Now I have to start all over again!??!?? You know what? I am scared as hell. Two kids? With one kid you can play man to man with safety coverage over the top. On tough days you can even double team one kid. But two kids? That is zone coverage day in and day out, and for all you football fans out there, you know zone coverage is easy to beat. Jackson is slippery, one minute he’s under your feet, the next minute the screen door is squeaking and he’s half way up the front lawn. He can beat zone coverage every day and twice on Sunday.
I’m starting to freak out a little bit over here. Don’t get me wrong, Jackson has been the greatest joy and most precious blessing in my life. There is not a day goes by that his presence hasn’t made my life better, but raising one is hard enough. My body still struggles to catch up to the extra hours I need to raise a son. My calendar has become an overlapped mess of appointments, music classes and kid birthday parties weaved in and out of work meetings. If I wasn’t playing, feeding or inventing a way to get him to sleep, I was trying to find a quiet 20 minutes to catch some 💤s myself.
It was never easy, but it also wasn’t always as hard as everyone seems to make it out to be. Eventually we hit a groove and Jax slowly became adjusted to life in this crazy household and settled into his routines quite nicely. The feeling of exhaustion was reserved for times few and far between. Emails were answered in a timely manner again and I actually was able to clear out about 50% of my DVR (on a side note how do people actually have more than like 30% space available on their DVR. It’s Un-American to not have at least 25 unwatched movies recorded… just in case). Two kids though? All that is down the drain. It’s back to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, bath time in the sink and sleeping anywhere I can close my eyes.
Raising a kid is scary as hell, but when you start creating a team of them… scary is an understatement. The only hope is that Mom and Dad built a good foundation with the first one, so that we have a head start on what works for the next one. I guess we’ll find out in March.
Good luck mom… good luck dad… good luck Jax, Buster and Max… Good Luck Earth. There’s another Fragola on the way.
Sorry Son: Chronicles of a New Dad 