First Year Reflections

I can scarcely believe it, but my wife and I have made it through our first year as parents.

Yesterday, we celebrated my daughter’s first birthday and we were both just overwhelmed when we thought of how much she’d grown, how far she’d developed and how much of a very happy little person she is. When I first wrote about the joys of being a parent here, she hadn’t even turned one month old. Now, she’s a full year old and it’s hard not to feel like a champion parent when you see just how joyful your child is each and every day.

One thing we’ve heard time and time again from stunned parents everywhere is how amazingly happy she seems. They all seemed to want to know our secret and, frankly, it’s not that amazing when you think about it. We all know that children pick things up from their parents. If said parents live in a haze of misery or an overall “Life is Blah” mentality, their kids will pick up on that.

Regardless of the day or the hour, my wife and I do our best to project as much happiness as we genuinely can. Even when we’re exhausted from having no sleep and my little one’s crying in her crib, we bring her nothing but love and soothing consolation. So, in this first year, my daughter has siphoned off a lot of our happiness and made it her own. That’s the secret. Of course, even the happiest parents can’t keep their children perpetually happy, but we’ll still do our best to keep spirits high for as long as possible.

And so, as I prayed for the Lord to give her many more years of blissful happiness, it dawned on me why parents can be so overprotective of their children. I mean, who wants to be the one responsible for tainting their perfect lives for the very first time? I certainly don’t. She’s the kind of girl who loves to giggle, loves the people around her and loves seeing us first thing in the morning. She’s the kind of girl who makes me want to bring my A-Game each and every day… and that entails (among many other things) greeting her with broad smiles and a genuine excitement to see her.

It’s true that my wife and I have made it a habit of shielding our girl from anything that might upset her emotionally. When she was five months old, my wife’s cousin’s infant son, Kauan died and my wife was sobbing almost to the point of hysterics. Seeing that my baby was right in the next room, peering through her crib, I took the opportunity to cross over, greet her and sing a few songs to her. Blissfully ignorant of the horrible thing that had just happened, my girl just smiled and cooed as always. Once my wife had had time to compose herself, she brought her happy face to our daughter.

Some might argue that we can’t keep her in this Pleasantville microcosm forever and I agree with that. But I’m going to do whatever I can to delay her introduction to the less-than-wonderful aspects of life and death. And frankly, I see nothing wrong with that. She’ll find out soon enough that we don’t live in a utopia… and I see no reason to rush to uncover such a depressing revelation.

We’ve also tried to give her the best start with regards to nutrition as possible. My wife aimed to breastfeed her for her entire first year. She made it just over half that time. With scarcely enough time to pump adequate amounts of milk, coupled with the fact that our little princess had turned to biting in Month Six, it just became impossible for her to continue. She let the well run dry and we switched to formula.

When our pediatrician gave us the green light to start her on solid foods, we did the rice cereal thing and quickly moved to introducing mashed fruits and veggies to her. Before long, it was chicken and beef and now, she’s got a pretty solid diet of the necessary four food groups. We cook her food as opposed to buying those famous mini Gerber baby jars and some people (including members of my family) laughed and said that wouldn’t last. Well, we’ve been doing it for months now and I see no signs of us slowing down. If our schedules get too hectic, we’ll cook in the evening and store it for the morning and afternoon.

As for fruit, I’ve found it to be an amazingly useful food to pack with us whenever we go out. Trust me when I say that ready-made food that needs virtually no preparation and can be served at room temperature is a blessing to have when you need to feed your child in a pinch. But the best part of being a parent is having that bond with your spouse and working together as a team. We have a solidarity now that wasn’t really there prior to our daughter’s existence. I mean, sure, we loved each other and supported each other, but having a baby together really puts you to the test. I’ve found that we both come away from the experience a lot happier when we both give our best effort towards keeping our girl happy and healthy.

We marvel at her development and every new accomplishment is cause for celebration. We give her daily doses of confidence-boosting encouragement and we save all of our best smiles, hugs and kisses for her. We read to her every day and we speak to her in soft and loving tones. So yeah, we’re immensely grateful that she’s a happy baby, but given our treatment of her, we’re really not as surprised as everyone else apparently is. She’s a true reflection of my wife’s best and my best and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for our second year as parents. <")))><