I've been a dad for about 18 days now. It is spectacular. It helps that Grayson is calm, loves to be held and rarely if ever cries or fusses. And Kate says he looks like me. It's hard to tell, but sometimes I do feel like I'm looking in a time machine mirror and watching myself as a baby.
I harped a lot on parents who like to tell you how much your life changes when you have kids, and I don't know what will happen over the next 50 years, but life as a dad over the past two weeks has been the best. Neither of us has any idea what we're doing, and we often look at each other and wonder how we became parents and who let us have a child.
Probably the idea that sums it up the most came from Friday Night Lights (which we watched A LOT of while I was home). Coach Taylor and his wife are starting to get into an argument about something their 17-year-old daughter did, and Tami says something to the affect of how they have each been a parent for the same amount of days and hours and therefore have the same amount of knowledge to draw from. What ever happened to maternal and paternal instinct?
Dads do get the easier end of the deal with a newborn though. Moms (for the most part) are the ones getting up in the middle of the night to feed them and changing their lives around to accommodate their child's every need. I do my best to wake up to help out when Kate can pry me out of bed, but she has been great about letting me sleep, since I am already back to work while she stays home for a few more weeks. It seems that is often the case, as the dad works and returns to more of the life he was used to before the baby, getting outside the house, interacting with other adults and getting back to a routine.
My first days back to work were tough. I was blessed with a week off after Grayson was born to be with him and take care of Kate, but leaving him every morning hasn't gotten easier. Fortunately (I guess) he is awake before I would like to be, so I do get to start my day seeing this little guy:

But how can you say good-bye to that face?

So I'm a father now, which is very weird and awesome and surreal. My son, Grayson, is hilarious and sleeps a lot so far (at least in the 22 hours that he has been around), as long as I swaddle him. I should start a business teaching dads how to swaddle babies because I am really, really good at it.
I waited for this day for years, since way before Grayson was thought about. What would it be like to be a dad? How will I raise a kid? How soon can we play catch? I'm sure I didn't dream about it the way Kate and so many other girls dream about being moms as they play house growing up, but I always knew I wanted to have a family of my own, and I was excited to get married and become a dad.
Granted, I was resistant and scared when Kate was ready to start that family before I was, but from the day we found out she was pregnant, I waited for this day (well, yesterday actually) as I knew our dreams would come true.

Sorry, had to change another diaper...

Parents always say things like, do everything you want to do before you have kids, and kids change everything. Of course they do. And what could I do before kids that I can't do now - travel the world? Drink 300 types of beer? Stay out past 8 p.m.? I wouldn't do any of those things anyway. A friend of mine told me having a kid was a great excuse to be home before 7 and in bed by 9. Sounds like a great night to me!
While some parents might be spending their nights dreaming of experiences lost, I will spend mine watching my son grow into a man and trying to help him do that every step of the way.