This is not easy!

I underestimated how hard having a baby would be. I've heard a million times from parents that it's difficult, but I kind of thought they were exaggerating. In retrospect I think they were probably lowballing the amount of effort in an attempt to trick the childless into their group. Either that or they lost their minds and had forgotten how much effort it takes. I thought it was simply a matter of maintenance (feed, change, wash, repeat). You get a good schedule going and it practically takes care of itself. Effortless.

What people don't express is all the stress involved. It's not just the feeding but worrying about when they are going to eat, are they getting enough, too much, are they going to spew it out this time, etc. Changing is much easier, unless of course you start changing them before they are done. That can get messy. I think certain aspects get easier as the child grows. There is more decision making that needs to be done (Can they spend the night at a friends house that you've never met?), but at a certain point they can do a lot of things for themselves. They become less fragile.

One thing this experience has done is made me more sympathetic to single parent families. I think Jen and are doing a pretty good job of working together and sharing the load. She's up with him more often at night during the week since I have to work, but I'm up with him 3 nights a week (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday). I can't imagine how you could do it on your own. I guess that's why people bring their extended families into the mix. Share the burden or go insane seems to be the 2 choices.

We do love him. How could you not? But we are anxious for him to grow up a little. Talking and walking are going to be really fun. Or am I being overly optimistic again?