First Thoughts

When my wife, my beautiful, incredibly intelligent wife Ashley, although she did marry me so the intelligence part is debatable at times...... Anyway, when she told me that we were going to have a baby, I didn't really know what to say. I mean I was thrilled of course, but I also thought, "Am I actually old enough to be a dad?" I mean, at the ripe old age of 23, I was still on my 15th year of college. Only 5 actual years, but it felt like 15 years.

I still don't really know what to really think about becoming a dad. I usually try and prepare myself on how I will react in a certain situation. But having no experience as a dad, I have nothing to pull from to prepare myself for being a father. So, because of my inexperience with this situation, I have caused my wife to believe there must be something wrong with me.

Let me explain by using a few examples. Last night, my wife and I were asleep and I felt her hitting me on my arm. I woke with a start and instantly starting asking, "What's wrong? What's wrong??" My wife just says, "I rolled over." I replied, "Didn't you hit my arm to wake me up?" I believe her reply was, "My bad." Once my heart rate dropped back to normal levels, I went back to sleep. Apparently, I have become an easily excited, paranoid person since I became a dad. My wife can't get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without me waking up and asking if she's alright.

But Ashley's favorite story to tell is about Braxton Hicks. For those of you who are clueless like me, Braxton Hicks are the name of contractions that basically prepare the woman's body to pop out a baby. So now with your new found knowledge we can continue the story.

We are driving in the car and I heard Ashley say something about Braxton Hicks contractions. Now, at first, the only word I heard was contractions. And I thought, "This is it. This is your moment. Don't panic, just keep driving." Then I thought wait a minute.... And I asked my wife, "Who is Braxton Hicks? I thought we were calling the baby Nathaniel? You're just going to confuse the poor kid." Needless to say, I may never live that one down.

I have plenty to learn and I'm sure I will have plenty of stories along the way. I don't want to forget about anything because they only grow up once. Hopefully I can learn along the way as well...... But not too much, then I might have to start changing diapers or something.