Thoughts of a Newborn Father: Stress

So yeah. New baby. And yes, another blog post about it. But I had some more thoughts, and this is where they end up. You’re all the victims. Sorry.

Time for more honesty: I’ve been stressed.

Stressed for a variety of reasons. I think the biggest reason is that I feel like I don’t have the right to be stressed. I’m taking care of the kids, yes–but my mom’s here for now, so I’ve got help with that. I think the big thing is that there’s this big new addition to the family, and I sort of subconsciously feel like I should be doing big new things to balance out everything Denisa’s doing now.

This is stupid. I know it’s stupid. And yet somehow I can’t stop feeling this way. And so I’m doing all sorts of yard work, I’ve been decluttering the house, running errands, still trying to stay on top of work emails and news, doing my writing, entertaining the kids, cleaning the house . . .

It’s just a lot of stuff to take in at once, especially when you’re not sleeping all that great. (If teeth grinding were an Olympic sport . . .)

It also doesn’t help that some of the things I’ve been doing are so outside my comfort zone. Take going to the grocery store, for example. I get in that store, and I’m faced with decision after decision. A simple  thing like “get a loaf of bread” confronts me with tons of choices. Does there really need to be 80,000 types of bread at the store? And they’re all different kinds, different prices, different ingredients. I’m the sort of guy who likes to do research and find the one best option. It takes me a lot of time to make decisions. When there’s so many options for so many things (Which yogurt? Which cheese? Which milk?) I end up getting frazzled.

I’ve never been one to dismiss the things stay-at-home moms do. I’ve been a stay-at-home dad, and I know it’s all work. Both sides are important in different ways. And so maybe I should cut myself some slack. Admit that it’s okay to feel stressed–life has changed significantly. It would be strange if I wasn’t stressed.

But there’s a difference between knowing something in theory, and applying that knowledge in real life. I’ve got the knowing part down, but the applying is taking some time . . .

I better get it down quickly. I go back to work next week, at least part time.

In other news, MC (baby) has stopped being such a sleepy head at last and transition to an eight times a day feeding schedule. Yay for eating well. Not so great for Denisa’s own sleep needs. It should be sort of hairy for a few weeks at least. We’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, if you ask me something and you get a bit sharper of a reply than you were expecting, please be understanding.

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