Sitting in my favorite recliner, I watch my now 8-month-old son on the floor mat chewing on his favorite teether — drool pouring out the mouth as he blabs. He just recently found his voice, and it won’t be long before he starts to crawl all over the house.
Next comes the walking — and running and baby proofing. And it won’t be long until he reverberates that one word we wish never existed in our child’s vocabulary, “no.”
Before I know it, he’ll be off to kindergarten. And in a snap of a finger, he’ll be in high school and eventually off to college, ready to take on the real world.
In my eighth month of fatherhood, one thing rings true as I talk to parents here in the Keys whose kids flew the nest. “Enjoy it now. Before you know it, they’ll be taking the keys to your car.”
The time really does fly by as I sit here just a few months away from my son’s first birthday. Where did the time go?
Rewind eight months back, my little guy, Lucas, entered the world at a hospital in Miami. Emotions poured as I saw him for the first time — his mouth wide open and eyes shut as he cried. He already had a full head of blonde hair, which I couldn’t believe, and his rolls made him a miniature Pillsbury Doughboy. Sitting in the hospital room, my girlfriend, Brie, and I watched him as we were enamored at his facial features, little toes and tiny fingers. Excitement began to build as we prepared to bring him back to our Keys home.
As a first-time father, I had a lot to get accustomed to and learn — like the fact that he would dictate our sleep schedule for the months to come (thank you Red Bull for keeping us going). The diaper changing wasn’t so bad (I had the honor of changing the first-ever diaper.) And I certainly enjoyed watching him sleep in his high-tech baby swing that swayed back and forth at different speeds with the press of a button on the remote. The technology in these chairs and swings nowadays is pretty incredible; they even play soothing sounds.
At 4 months, he kept us up routinely through the night as we fed him bottles and rocked him back to sleep. It was no doubt a challenge, but we worked through it. Eventually, we started giving him solid baby food to settle that fierce hunger. By 6 months, Lucas was sitting in a high chair with his mouth wide open as we shoveled jars of food into his mouth. I gotta give it up to the kid, he’s eating everything from peas and sweet potato to pear and mango.
In a matter of months, his newborn weight transformed into something similar to a 20 pound dumbbell. I found myself switching him from one arm to the other in just minutes. I think it’s time I get back to Froggy’s gym.
There are many moments in my son’s young life that I continue to look back on as I spend each day feeding him, getting down on the play mat to rattle toys and putting him to sleep. After all, these times won’t last forever; they’ll become a memory and a story worth telling or a picture stored in the iPhone to look back at in the months and years to come.
For all those first-time fathers out there, cherish each moment you have as you sit in the playpen and rattle toys, listen to “Cocomelon” (younglings are addicted to this show) and devour baby food in the high-chair. Each moment with your baby is different from the previous one. And, before you know it, they’ll be all grown up.
Happy Father’s Day to all the rockstar dads out there. And here’s a special shout out to the first-time dads working hard and having the time of their lives.
