It will get better

Imagine you are asleep. You are gently nudged awake, and roll over. There you find me, standing there, and I say, “My pants fell down.”
Kinda creepy, yeah?
Well, for some reason, when a two-year-old does it, it’s hilarious. I awoke this way the other morning, and, because I am in the routine of having kids, I simple leaned over, hitched up his drawers, and sent him on his way. In no time, I was back to sleep.
Having two kids, the older being five, I am quite used to the daily hustle and flow and occasional pants falling incident. And no amount of explaining that you get used to the routine and that they eventually sleep is a bit of help to my neighbors, who are about a week into the having-a-kid thing. Surprisingly, they are finding things are slightly different than they were a couple of weeks ago.
The other night, I was taking my trash out to the curb. I saw my neighbor doing the same thing. Well, not the same thing. He was taking HIS trash out. We met in the street, and I commented that he looked somewhat tired. I believe my exact words were, “Dude, do you own a brush?”
Guys don’t sugarcoat things.
But he had this look that all new dads have. The slumped shoulders. The ruffled hair. The bags under the eyes that could be used to smuggle VCRs. And he also had that look of, “If one more parent tells me how it will get better, I will possibly beat them with a bottle warmer.”
I, of course, did not tell him that. As a guy, it is my job to be supportive to my friends, and let them know that I am there if needed. So I made repeated jokes. “Hey, and when the baby goes down, maybe you can put your shirt on right-side-out.” or “Man, I don’t know what to do with the next 10 hours, what with the kids asleep and all.” He was sleep deprived enough that I could easily get away from any attempted bottle warmer assaults.
I remember those days. When Allie was born, I quickly found out that sleep deprivation makes you really, really cranky. Nasty cranky. Yell at the dog cranky. Mumble to yourself cranky. At three weeks, she finally decided to start sleeping. The first night we got a decent night’s sleep, we awoke in a panic. It’s like we had forgotten what it was like to get a real night’s sleep.
Another thing my neighbor is experiencing is that new parent sensation of sheer terror whenever you hear a peep out of the baby. This usually happens right as your drift to sleep. The baby will say what babies say, which is not much, but it is enough to send you lurching out of bed, heart pounding, trying to collect yourself. It’s weird, because your brain is saying, “He’s OK. Babies cry. Be calm. Be cool.” But then the heart says, “BABY CRYING!!!! RUN!!!! COULD BE WOLVES!!!” The heart does not play well with others sometimes.
This phenomenon passes, too. With Allie, I was springing out of bed every few minutes, as was my wife. With Parker, he would have had to play a trombone to get me up. (For the record, this did not go over well with a certain other parent in my house, who insisted I was faking being asleep. For what it’s worth, I was not.)
Another interesting thing that my neighbors are finding out is that babies, well, they don’t do much. They sleep. They eat. They poop. Pretty much a full day’s work. I know that when we first had a child, I kept asking my wife when she would, well, do something. She would begin to give me the timeline for when babies crawl, stand, etc. I would cut her off, and say, “No, I mean do something cool. Like throw a curveball. Or not cry when I jump out from behind a door and scream ‘BOO!’” This is why my wife sighs a lot.
But I did find that a child’s firsts – be it crawls, steps, or laughing at being scared – are all pretty cool. And they will find this, too. And before they know it, they will be able to pass on the wisdom to other parents. The wisdom that it will get better. And it won’t matter a bit to the new parents they are trying to convince.