Eli McCann finds being a new father exhausting and exciting

I became a father in September, just a few months after I turned 40.

Most of my parenting experience so far has been basically what I’ve been waiting for: Feeding at 2 a.m. The feeling of being constantly covered in saliva. My husband and I wander around our house like zombies day and night, unconsciously having the same conversation over and over again. It’s truly remarkable how much of my life has been spent talking to another grown man about someone’s pooping habits.

But becoming a father also had some unexpected side effects. For example, bringing a baby into my home meant that my mother, whom I both idolized and feared, would visit us every day and say, “Oh! Interesting way you chose to do this!” Strangers on the internet have also taken it upon themselves to send me alarming, unsolicited parenting advice that directly contradicts almost everything our pediatrician tells us. Did you know that diapers don’t always work? Yes, sometimes when we swaddle the baby we find out that his whole body is covered in mustard. We change it one by one. The most disgusting game of Russian roulette imaginable.

My husband and I handled the stress of trying to keep a baby alive in completely different ways. He cleaned out our bank account by purchasing every invention that would make raising children easier. My Google search history is “is the baby crying, is it dangerous?” It is full of queries like. And “the baby is not crying, is it dangerous?” And “dad is crying, is it dangerous?”

my ‘village’

I’ve always heard that it takes a village to raise a child, but I don’t think I ever really knew what that meant until a village showed up for me. The moment we brought our baby home, our friends and family started showing up at our doorstep with casseroles in hand, as if they were on a humanitarian mission. If I had known that having a baby would come with free food, I would have done it ten years ago.

We encountered an almost constant stream of visitors poking their heads into our home, like villagers paying their respects to an infant prince, to drop off baby clothes and other supplies and keep an eye on our son. The most surprising thing about these visits is how little the people who stop by care about my wife and me. I don’t think a single person has made eye contact with me in almost a month. Last week my entire family surrounded the baby in our living room to worship him. I left for an hour to run errands and when I returned no one had noticed I was gone.

The greatest gift anyone ever gave me happened about four days after we brought it home. We’re so sleep deprived at this point that I don’t think we’re technically human anymore. My little sister called me and said she was coming to stay the night and come on baby duty so we could get some sleep. I almost started crying at the proposal and made a note to name a star after him. That night I slept so well that I saw the face of God. The next morning I was so rested that I could speak Hungarian fluently just by hearing someone speak it. I will spend the rest of my life chasing that glorious peak of sleep.

We take him for walks every evening, our two dogs with us, our baby sleeping in the crib of the stroller, completely unaware that he is out there, or maybe even alive. We have been on the same walking route for years, often passing the same people we have greeted for almost a decade, without even changing our names. I sometimes wondered if they were following my expanding family as joyfully as I was following theirs. Ten years ago, I was the one wandering around the neighborhood alone and alone. In the end, it was just me and the dog. Then a dog, a husband and me. Soon we each had a leash. And now a stroller.

I don’t want to seem like I think I’m the main character of the world. And as far as I know, no one paid any attention to me on these walks. But the other day I was overcome with the thought of a stranger seeing our chaos and thinking: “I’m glad this guy doesn’t seem so lonely anymore.” I admit, I’m a seriously sleep-deprived man whose heart is exploding with the difficult onset of middle-age fatherhood, so almost anything can make me cry right now.

Like a framed picture that, as a surprise to me, my husband asked a friend to paint of our family dressed as ghosts. He knows that Halloween usually makes me angry because I don’t have kids of my own to trick-or-treat with. “You’ll have all of us this year,” he said, handing me the paper.

midnight moments

The baby woke up around 2am last night to eat. It was my turn to feed her, so I picked her up from her crib and took her to another part of the house to shake her bottle so as not to disturb my husband.

I don’t think I’ll miss those late-night feedings, but I have to admit there’s something about these moments that feels somehow sacred. Darkness. Comfort. Little gremlin noises coming from his mouth as he eats something I’m curious about but dare not taste.

Before he came, I told people I was worried I’d be bad at it. I’ve never been very good with babies. After breastfeeding, I sat him down on a table and groggily started changing his diaper, and at that moment I thought how natural this all was; As if this was something I should have done all along, but I didn’t. I haven’t had a baby yet.

What a relief to learn that at least some of this is intuitive. Being a father is a wonderful feeling rather than a strange one. Yes, this seems really normal.

On the other hand, it’s a strange feeling to change someone’s diaper who might change mine one day.

Eli McCann is an attorney, author, and podcaster in Salt Lake City, where she lives with her husband, new baby, and two mischievous (but adored) dogs. You can find Eli at: Xformerly known as Twitter, @EliMcCann or on your personal website, www.itjustgetsstranger.comHe tries to keep swearing to a minimum so as not to upset his mother.

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