Week 1 - New beginnings

Exactly ten days ago on December 18th, 2014 at 5:11am, my son, Jay Henderson Hardy IV was born. Never before in my life have I gone through an experience quite as monumentally life altering as his arrival.

Newborn Picture

My original plan was to create a low key, personal blog shortly after his birth to give me a place to share pictures, stories, and my experiences as a new dad with those who have an interest in such things, but are too far away to get regular updates. As a warning, this blog also gives me a way to pass some of the time during those long nights (and so far they have indeed, been long) spent as he drifts back off to sleep after a midnight feeding. As a result, it is, at times, going to be rambly, disconnected, and existential. For that I apologize in advance. I'll try to keep the crap to a minimum.

If you are interested in such things, welcome! I will try to update at least once a week so I can use this blog as a sort of diary documenting how both he (and I for that matter) change and grow from week to week, month to month, year to year. Hopefully I can keep it up.

This first post will be a little thick. I want to make sure I capture my feelings here in these early days so I can look back on them later. Future posts will be more pictures, less feelings. I promise.

People tell you that having a kid will change your life. Some will even tell you how, whether you ask them or not. What I have learned in the ten days since Jay was born is that they were simultaneously all completely right and complete wrong.

Having a kid is, in some ways, exactly what you would expect. You lose your free time. You lose your sleep. You become more isolated and your schedule completely rearranges around his needs. Freedoms you once took for granted seem like long lost memories. You instantly inherit a pile of worries on top of those you had already. But those people were also right when they said that it's not all bad. The love I feel for this little boy already is unlike anything I have ever felt before. It was instant and it was unconditional. By many standards it is completely irrational.

Week 1 Picture

On the whole, it's great. It really is. I am excited to see the kind of man Jay IV grows up to be. The feelings of adventure and optimism were something I did not expect at all. Through him, I get to relive all the joys of childhood and all the excitement of a potential yet unrecognized. This time however, it will be from the other end of things. It's like getting to go back and play your favorite game or watch your favorite movie from a whole new perspective. He may grow up to be a future president. He may grow up to follow in my footsteps into academia. He may grow up to hate me.

Who knows? Giving into an unknown fate is, in many ways, liberating. I can't wait. This little boy gives me a sense of purpose so uniquely outside of the plans I had for my life that it's made me completely reconsider everything I thought I knew about life and about happiness.

I'm new to this parenting thing, but I plan to give it everything I got! It's a magical world, Hobbes, Ol' buddy. Let's go exploring.