more surprises of fatherhood.

So, I'm actually going to do a Part 2 post on the Surprises of Fatherhood.  It's been almost 6 months since I wrote the original post and now my son is almost 1 year old.  Amazing!  It's been one crazy ride with this little fellow.  I'm sure there will be many more fatherhood surprises but here are the new ones I've discovered so far.

Dude, I'm tired.

Okay, this sounds stupid.  Wow, you're a parent and you're tired?  Join the club.  The surprise here isn't that I'm tired, it's that it's a different type of tired.  This isn't hangover tired, or no sleep tired, or I just ran a marathon tired, it's something completely different.  And here I am lucky; my son sleeps a pretty normal schedule, maybe wakes up once in the night, takes naps, and I get 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night, sometimes 9.  It's like a winning the Kiddo lottery!  But I'm still tired.  Taking care of someone wears you out and I do the least amount parenting work here.  Thanks Wifey.  But yeah, it's a different kind of tired, like a combo of sleeplessness and being stretched too thin.

Haha, okay all baby songs and lullabies are the same song.

Alright, this isn't completely true but it is fairly accurate.  I don't know how so many people get away with ripping each other off but it happens abundantly in the baby music world.  My favorite example is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and the "Alphabet Song".  Go ahead, sing them back to back.  You'll warm up to the light going off in your head.  How did I never realize this before?

Toys are irrelevant.

Do yourself and anyone who will buy your kid toys, don't, just don't.  My Son has a lot of toys, too much.  And he favors none of them.  If we take one away, he shrugs and picks up another one.  And get this, his favorite things to play with are empty water bottles.  He'll double fist those things and have a blast.  Of course, some toys are good, especially if they make noise, sing songs or are constructive to learning in any way.  And my Son's second favorite toy?  The tubs we put his toys in!  Yeah, save yourself some money.

Clothes are a waste of money.

The other day I dropped like $40 to buy some Star Wars shirts for my Son.  At the time it seemed cool to get them and they were supposed to be on sale and they weren't but we got them anyways.  Now I just think what a waste.  The kid doesn't even know what Star Wars is(although, he really gets into Lego Star Wars episodes)  And this goes for the rest of his wardrobe.  We have so many clothes he never even wore, that just got put into storage.  Crazy!  Sure, we received a lot of gifts but most of it was unnecessary.  Don't buy the expensive stuff.  Plain Jane colors are just fine and cool sayings are great if you aren't paying any extra money for it.  Save some money and keep it simple.  You really only need about 9 outfits for each age range.  And make sure the seasons match up.  A 12 mos heavy jacket isn't really necessary if your child turns 1 during the summer.

How is this kid so smart?

I'm surprised my kid is smart?  This sounds kind of demeaning of me and my Wife, right?  Well, it's not really.  It's just you can get so amazed when your child does something smart.  Like turning the T.V. off when you're trying to watch your movie instead of his cartoon.  Or when he is stacking boxes to get to the top of the table.  Or when he learns to pull the lint trap out of the dryer, just to get to the lint he likes to eat when no one is looking????  I mean, you expect your kids to learn new tricks as they get older.  What I didn't expect is that it would seem so amazing to me.  I little girl in the waiting room just taught him how to point by showing him.  And wow, now he's giving us kisses on request and then clapping with us when it happens?  Blows my mind.

The kid blows my mind.  I can't wait for the next surprise.