Our baby is now 13 months old and it has been a beautiful ride of long nights, mini panic attacks at hearing silence, and a series of impulsive laughter and contentment.

Is it possible to be impulsively content?  Yes.

There were a few hallmark moments over the past year that I need to put in haiku form.

Diapers.

As any parent knows, changing diapers is a huge part of the first year of any baby.

Something is stinky

It’s Time to change her diaper

What a crappy job

Bottles.

The wife did a lot of breast feeding.  But there were times when she had to do some pumping and kept the bottles in the fridge.  At times when the baby was hungry I had to heat up some water and warm up a bottle.  At one point I just decided to give the baby the bottle cold.  Wow… did I catch heck for that.

In-between the boobs

Need to warm up a bottle

Cold milk is fine too?

Sleepless nights.

During the first few months she was crying every few hours at night.  After the next few months it was less.  Now after a year, we are lucky if she gets up only once at night.  Either way, there has been many non-bladder nocturnal interruptions over this past year… and I’m sure many more to come.

Dreaming precious dreams

Sudden screams at 2:30

I guess I’m up now

Baby Clothes.

Wow… where to begin.  We had a deluge of baby clothes when the baby was born.  It was so many clothes that we ended up not getting a chance to have her wear them all.  I did the Don Quixote thing and requested no clothes for her first birthday party.  Diapers would be fine.  Not one single diaper and a whole new wardrobe.

It’s more baby clothes

She grows out of them so fast

Unused clothes in bags

Changed world view.

It’s amazing how I developed such a visceral reaction to tragic stories in the news regarding children.  When I see it, I immediately want to hold my girl close to me and protect her as long as possible.

The World: a big place

Daddy instincts setting in

I hate watching news