A Father’s Diary

A breakthrough just happened.

We left tabi at the baby sitters for 7 hours and nothing happened. She was fine.

We had to go to a desert excursion organized by my office and it seemed too risky to take tabi with us. So we decided to leave tabi at my wife’s friends place as she had been there many times and it worked well. As much as we were skeptical and nervous about it, we went ahead with the plan, because as they say, if you never try you will never know.

So when we picked up tabi in the night, tabi appeared to be perfectly normal. She didn’t cry upon seeing us nor created any scene. Our friends said she didn’t cry at all throughout the day. We were pleasantly surprised, needless to say.

This event has created many new possibilities for future. Let’s see.

Tabi turned 8 months few days ago.

She is doing most if not all of the things 8 month olds are supposed to do. She does her baby talk, which seems very random but repetitive. She laughs when someone makes funny faces in front of her, or tickles her. She still likes to see and meet new people, and never lets go an opportunity to let a stranger carry her. We have left her with the baby sitters a couple of more times and she has behaved perfectly well. She is very moody when it comes to eating her food. Sometimes she eats whatever is given to her as if its her favorite food and sometimes she refuses to eat anything for an entire day. She still loves ice-cream and never refuses that. She has learned to stand up by holding on to different objects. She loves to stand up and makes an effort to stand up whenever she can. She has also taken a few steps by holding on to whatever she is holding on to standing. I predict she will learn to walk in a couple of months, definitely before her 1st birthday.

It’s a delight to watch her grow and do new things. The anticipation of what she will do next is ineffable feeling.

I love ice-cream. There was a time when I ate nothing but ice-cream for an entire week. My wife loves ice cream too.

And now it seems like the genes have been transferred to tabi. She is hardly 8 months but she gets excited to see ice-cream as if its her most favorite thing. The way her eyes start shining, the way she starts jumping on her seat, the way she shakes her hands and moves her head forward, it’s just amazing. We have to struggle to make her eat something but for ice-cream it’s opposite. She just wants to eat ice-cream even if we don’t want her to have it. We can only wonder how things will be when she gets a little older.

It is going to be the ice-cream family.

My wife’s friend moved to our neighborhood few days ago. They have two sons 4 and 5 years old. Tabi enjoys playing with them as she is very social and loves it when there are people around her. They had offered us to babysit tabi a few times so we decided to give it a try. We left her at their place and then it was me and my wife, just the two of us together. We went to the mall and had a great time. It seemed like the old days where we were newly married and did not have a care in the world. But we did have a care this time. We had a baby at someone else’s place and we didn’t know what was going on there. So we came back in a couple of hours as we both were scared how tabi would behave without her mama or baba around, plus we didn’t want to overburden the kind babysitters. To our surprise, tabi behaved very well. She didn’t cry at all and did not prove to be a menace. It all went very smooth. The experiment was successful.

Next time we will try leaving her for a slightly longer duration and see what happens.

Tabi and her mother are back from vacations. I saw my daughter after 45 days. She looked a bit different. She looked a bit older. 45 days older, which is a long time considering the fact she is only 7 months.

I think she didn’t recognize me when she saw me. I didn’t see the excitement in her eyes as it used to be before she left. I guess that’s the way it is with babies. They don’t see you for a while and they forget you. She is also not sleeping on my shoulder like she used to. She wants to be in her mama’s arms when she is feeling sleepy. It will take a few days for her to get used to me again.

Being a father is great thing. So great that nothing on earth is perhaps better than being a father and raising your kids to be contributing members of the world.

But being a father comes with a price. One has to sacrifice a lot to be a good father. It’s more than just emotions. It takes a lot of planning and compromise. It’s no way an easy job. It might be one of the hardest jobs ever, because if you go wrong, it will impact the life of your child, which is worse than any financial loss.

Here are some of the ways fatherhood can impact your life. So make sure you understand those factors and are ready to face the challenges associated with it.

Financial Impact

Fatherhood is not only about feelings and emotions. It’s a lot about money as well. Cost of raising a child is often more than cost of living of an adult. That’s mainly because adults can adjust to their environment and control their spending accordingly. But baby’s needs are constant. No matter how frugal you are, it is very hard to avoid the costs associated with baby’s milk, diapers, clothes, medicines, vaccinations, toys, and so on. Even before the baby is born there are costs associated with mother’s medical examinations and childbirth. Stepping in the land of fatherhood means substantial increase in your budget for years to come.

If you are planning to be a father, make sure you calculate how much it is going to cost you, and that you can afford it properly. Check your medical insurance plan to find out how much of pregnancy and childbirth is covered under it. Research on good hospitals in your area and see how much they charge. I would recommend checking kindergartens and schools in your area as well and find out their fees. This will give you a long term picture of how your financial situation will look like after the baby is born. You also might need to upgrade to a bigger place if your current home doesn’t have ample space to cater for the needs of an infant or a toddler.

Once you have done the analysis, check your income and make sure having a baby will not put a major dent in your bank account. Consider all factors such as expected raise or promotion, or economic conditions of your region. If you can do something to increase your income such as switching a job or investing in alternate revenue sources, make sure you have analyzed all the risks associated with those, because unexpected loss of job or income can be disastrous for your family. It’s a good idea to save a few months expenses for such emergencies.

Lifestyle Changes

As long as you don’t have kids you are pretty much your own boss. You don’t have to worry about the needs of children. A major change the a new father has to go through is change in lifestyle. After becoming a father things don’t stay the same anymore. You have to take care of the baby (and the mother). You have to make sure they have everything they need. You have to give time to your kids, make sure they are getting the love of their father, give advise when needed, be there with them on their important occasions, and perform the regular fatherly duties. You might have to cut down spending money for personal needs to be able to afford the needs of the child. In short, you are no longer a couple free to do anything. You have to adopt your lifestyle to cater the needs of your kids.

So if you are planning to be a father, be ready to make these changes in life. If you think you cannot change the way you live, then it is recommended to postpone the fatherhood. It doesn’t make sense to bring a baby in this world and not give her the attention she deserves.

Relationship Impact

A major factor that is involved in fatherhood is relationship with the wife. The relationship starts getting effected as soon as the baby is conceived. A pregnant women is an emotional bomb. She can explode on minor things which otherwise would have gone unnoticed. It is the husband’s job to understand the state his wife is in and cope up with it. This is the time when she needs your support and love the most. You have to be with her for visits to the doctor. You have to go with her to shop for baby’s items. You have to talk to her and plan the subtle details of parenthood. The phase after the baby is born is also very important for the relationship. This is the time when the mother is busy attending to the baby, and as a result she might not be able to give the same attention to the father. It’s the father’s job to be considerate and not keep any unreasonable to expectations from the mother. She is after all a person and has limited capacity.

These are only few ways fatherhood can change your life. There are many other elements that come into play. Everyone’s situation is unique. What you need to think is that whether or not you are ready to face all those challenges associated with fatherhood. It’s not an easy job and it should not be taken easily. Proper planning and thought needs to go into it. If you think you are not up for the job, then don’t take it.

All the best to future fathers. I hope you enjoy the experience.

Tabi and her mom are gone for vacations, leaving me alone here.

I thought I will be able to live without them without any major issues, but it turns out that it’s not as easy as it seemed.

So now that tabi is not here, I miss her really bad (I miss her mother just as bad but that’s a topic for another post on another blog).

I miss coming back from office and picking her up and playing with her.

I miss the time she used to sleep on my shoulder.

I miss carrying her in the malls in the sling and sometimes just without any support.

I miss making her sleep in the mall so that her mom and I could sit and talk while sipping coffee at Starbucks.

I miss her googoos and gagas and all the funny sounds she makes.

She will be back in a month’s time and I plan to spend that time just missing her and thinking about how she is growing up and learning new things while she is away from her daddy.