Introducing Teddy

At 10:06 am on the Third of July, my wife and I welcomed a beautiful young man into our family. John Theodore sprang rather expeditiously into this World, shouting, fussing and making one heck of a mess. I immediately thought, "Wow. He's just like his father". We've decided to bestow the cutest of nicknames upon John Theodore as we have taken to calling him 'Teddy'. I'm certain that this is just the first in a long line of monikers that he will have throughout his life. Friends were quick to recommend "JT" or "Theo" among a few others. While I am partial to calling Teddy "Theo" - as a nod to a childhood friend of mine, Theo Huxtable - the bear-related title has stuck for at least the time being. I take a certain amount of pride from the unintended but designed cute overload that the name provides our little man.

Teddy is a rambunctious little tyke. His current hobbies include snoozing, making odd noises and cycling through a long series of odd faces while he sleeps. In the image below, Teddy is fully fed with a clean diaper and is snoozing away. All of this would lend to a content child. Teddy decided to present us with a 'concerned' expression. What this Lilliput has to be concerned with, I do not yet know.

Jenna and I are quickly learning to adapt to life with a new roommate. Everything we do now revolves around Teddy. All decisions, including the timing of routine hygiene rituals, are made in coordination with his needs and schedules. I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. Before we welcomed Teddy, I understood what an exceptional consideration a child would be toward planning anything. It was made clear (sometimes in not the cheeriest of lights) that everything would definitely revolve around the baby forever forward. This not only seemed daunting but also a terrible inconvenience. "You mean to say, that if Jenna and I wanted to do something... we might not be able to because it's not what our baby wants to do?" Unacceptable. 

Now that Teddy is with us, this all begins to come into focus. He is all that I think about. He's all that I am concerned with. Of course I want to plan around him. Of course I want to put his needs first. I do recognize that he's only been with us less than two weeks (Gasp! He's almost two weeks old!), but this feeling seems so deeply rooted that I don't believe it will change anytime soon. Look at that little face above. How on Earth could you refuse to bend over backwards for him? 

Eddie Vedder once said something that has stuck with me for years. He talked about his own experience with having a child on a 2006 episode of Iconoclasts (with the very cool Laird Hamilton). When speaking about his daughter, Olivia... 

"It's interesting, the whole fatherhood thing. Everyone says it changes, you know, everything, but it's beyond that. It changes your chemical reaction. It changes your brain waves."

When I heard that it impressed me with the notion that your World isn't the only thing that changes. It's how you view the World that evolves. I think that I am beginning to understand that a little more. I'm not bold enough (or dumb enough?) to think that I completely understand fatherhood at this point. I do think that I'm beginning to taste that chemical reaction. I'm in the process of rewiring my brain waves. 

Be it Love, a chemical reaction or simply delirious sleep deprivation... I'm enjoying every minute of viewing this new World with Teddy by my side.