Tag: parenting

Happy 6 months lovely babby

Trying to capture part of my experience of fatherhood –

– the moment she came into the world? It felt discontinuous, like the world was torn down and then rebuilt containing something new. The arrival of Willa as independent being, breathing and looking – it seemed to break causality. A person, where there had been no person.

The light was shining on her. It actually was, the lamps in the delivery suite were arranged to drop a circle of light around newborn Willa, but I suspect that my brain would have made it seem that way regardless. There was information coming off her in waves, more than I could take in. Like if those lamps had been shining in my eyes – only they weren’t, they were bouncing off my daughter first, then flooding me. I couldn’t see her. There was too much information.

I still can’t, seven weeks on. Other people comment on resemblances but I can’t see them. When I look at her, my brain goes into overdrive. I get more data than I can process. Everything.

I know it won’t last – the chemical rush, the neural repatterning, the imprinting, the magic will all subside. But, I suspect, will never entirely disappear. So call that the first thing I learned as a parent: parenthood is a new way of seeing. Literally.

I mean it’s all I can talk about its like nothing else is happening in the world!

Cal has written a thoughtful, lovely piece about our wee human. If you like that sort of thing, go see.

They are on the Facebook. One of them has been on this blog before. Others are new.

She is real good babby.

For those wanting details, here are details. Everyone else, feel free to skip.

Willa is named for her paternal great-grandmother – my father’s mother. G-gma was Williamina and known as Mina, but we went with the alternative spelling Willamina to be known as Willa (and for an easier time spelling her name). Both versions are Scots variants on the Germanic form, Wilhelmina. It means “protector”, which is a pretty good name meaning to have.

Willa’s middle name Therese appears on both sides of the family tree. She’s taking my last name, Davie, at least for now. We don’t have a long-term strategy for a family name. We can talk about it with her when she’s old enough to have an opinion, I guess.

Willa arrived weighing just under 9 pounds (just over 4kg), which is big but not huge. She was long, 53cm I think, so she might have inherited my height. She could just lift her head right from birth, and a week on is easily able to support her own head long enough to turn it towards whatever she wants to look at.

Willa likes to sleep with her hands on either side of her forehead, fingers curled forward. She’s a good healthy feeder and is generally very content and happy. We are seriously counting our blessings in this regard because a lot of our friends have had rough rides with their new babies; hopefully this good streak will continue. (Cal jokingly argues that she deserves some easy time after a long nausea-ridden pregnancy!)

Willa has big feet. I took four randomly-selected pairs of baby booties to the hospital; three pairs were much too small, and the other just fit.

We read her her first story today; Hairy Maclary. Of course she had no idea what was going on but I think she picked up that something a bit special was happening. She spent most of the duration looking at the book rather than at Cal or me, and Cal thought she liked listening to my voice. (It’s a good book, lovely to read. Also: full of dogs, which fits into Cal’s masterplan to have every child in the world love dogs.)

She’s wonderful, basically, and the most amazing thing is how much it seems like she belongs here. Having her in our lives is perfectly right.

Oh also I’m total stereotypical dad with a camera full of baby photos. But I will try not to spam y’all.

[We haven’t opened our hoose to visitors just yet, but I look forward to showing her off soon!]

Willa arrived about 4.45 this morning. She’s happy and well. Cal is delighted by baby and fact she’ll be able to enjoy a Christmas feast. Dad = thoroughly chuffed.

It is Monday and I am not at work and do not yet have a baby.

We are likely to have a girl-baby. Can never be sure: sister of my office-buddy was expecting a girl, but last week got a boy. Still, my brain is mostly pointing towards girl, and that – that! It has given me cause to ponder. And ponder’d I thus: it makes me glad that I know so many amazing women.

Like, for serious, I know some *amazing* women. Doing incredible stuff, selfless stuff, high-powered high-achievement stuff, visionary stuff, good friend stuff, generous soul stuff. Stuff in all directions. Women who make me collapse with laughter. Women who walk up to dumbness and kick it in the gonads. And, not least, women gone through tough times & come out firing on all cylinders.

(Needless to say my Cal is all over these. Women in my family also strongly feature, yo.)

I am thankful for the privilege of knowing all these people, and being shaped by them, and seeing the world around me get shaped by them too. Because it reminds me that the bad is not insurmountable. That’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about over the last few months: the bad. Frex: the gender-coded socialization that doesn’t even bother to hide itself and will engulf the wee beastie in body-anxiety and social submission; I hope that the tools we give our daughter (if we do get a daughter) will help her not to breathe it all in.

Except hope isn’t the right word. Because of all these people I know, and because of the way I was brought up, and because I’m not doing this alone, I am confident she won’t breathe it all in. Hell, she might find a way to dodge the flood entirely.

We can do this stuff more-or-less right. I am surrounded by examples of doing it right, after all. And yes, I know they fcuk you up your mum and dad, but: it is my heartfelt intention to fcuk my little girl up in ways that run counter to the ways society at large is trying to fcuk her up. Society doesn’t need the extra help. (And besides, I’m a psychology nerd, and everyone knows psych-heads have a lock on finding new and unique ways to mess up our children.)

So what am I worried about? Like all these women I know, like her grandmothers and aunties, and like her mum, she’s gonna be awesome.

Unless she turns out to be a he. In which case, y’know, all bets are off.

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Prompt for this post was Simon C linking to this TED talk about growing up as a man. “My liberation as a man is tied to your liberation as a woman.” Strong stuff.

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Also: paying tribute to women by no means diminishes the many men I know who are also awesome. Particularly the dads of daughters who are making a bloody good go of it. Nice one dads, I am taking notes.

As I’m gonna be a dad in December, I figure I need to get myself schooled up in being a parent. So I’m going to be contemplating my major life influences and distilling the key parenting tips that I’ll need to be a great dad.

#4. When passing on values to child, use a jaunty, discursive non-preachy style