Jan.
16, 2000 - Sunday
Harry is one month old now and his mother says she can still remember the pain
of labor. I can also remember the events of Dec. 16 fairly well. Nevertheless,
with a month removed from the anxiety of those last couple, slow-moving hours
before his birth, the romance of the day is already gaining momentum. It's easy
to look back on our first meeting with Harry through the benefit of a personality
we've started to come to know. It's easy to say how calm and good-natured he
was even at birth. But, Harry's birth was really just an introduction to a person
we knew nothing about, except he was ours and we'd been waiting a long time
to meet him. There was more mystery in that initial meeting than the romantic
would like to admit. There was more biology, too. Yet, it's probably the combination
of those various things with the anticipation and the romance of it that makes
the experience so memorable.
Is our life all that different now? I don't know, but I don't think Harry's
turned it completely upside down. In many ways it's not too different from bringing
our cat home at first (Paavo was probably more trouble as a kitten than Harry).
There's no question Harry captures most of our attention now, but we're still
in an early novelty stage when everything is fascinating. Nonetheless, I'm back
at work (though not quite the same hours), we still watch too much TV (though
a little less), I play guitar, and we even take Harry shopping. We're fortunate
to have many good friends and family who have come to visit Harry and kept us
from being too isolated. We even have plans to bring Harry with us to some friends
for dinner later this week. But, unlike the cat, we can't very easily leave
Harry home and go to the movies or a concert. We love being with Harry and he's
a constant source of inspiration, but I'm sure there will come a point when
it stops being fun to change diapers and constantly feed him and his mother
and I will need to balance our own adult lives and intellectual stimulus with
Harry's less outgoing needs. Just this past weekend I thought it would have
been nice to see a movie with Harry's mother and know that we'll have to work
harder in the future to do things for ourselves. OK, so our life is a little
different.
