Still alive

I bet both of you thought that I forgot I had a blog. Admit it.

I had lunch with a good friend on Tuesday. He and his wife have a baby girl who was born last summer. When their daughter was about two months old, I asked him what surprised him the most about being a father. His answer was how much attention babies need, going well beyond typical feeding and changing diapers. They know if you're distracted by the TV or phone, and want your undivided attention.

When we had lunch this week, he returned the question to me, now that Sam is nearly 11 weeks old.

My answer is that I was completely unprepared for the drain on my mental capacity. The combination of processing so much new information and consistently sleeping less (and in less healthy fragments) is a potent and dangerous combination. Within a week of Sam's birth I was carrying around a pen and pad of paper 24 hours a day because if I didn't write things down, my brain would not retain even the simplest pieces of information. That worked well for a while, but my thoughts still became disorganized, and bits and pieces were left behind on pages I'd already filled out and crossed off. I have now upgraded my pad of paper to a smartphone so I can literally store all pertinent thoughts, ideas, shopping lists, data, tasks, schedules, phone numbers, addresses, maps, and emergency numbers in a single location, keeping everything organized by type and priority. I can even check my email and facebook. At times I wonder how I ever kept all of that straight, with or without the baby.

Of the many things I took for granted before Sam was born, I miss my mind the most.