Overall early baby parenthood has been more fun than I thought it would be but it is still very hard work. I've also experienced a new phase of marriage where disagreements of parenting styles can sometimes lead to tension. I think this is fairly common and the difference of our gender is definitely in play too with this. One example, I know I should be more worried about safety of our baby but in general this is not something that doesn't keep me up at night.
It's been nice getting special treatment at airports, restaurants, and public places where people coo and caw at the baby. We can now greet other parents in the street, with children of any age, and not be creepy - so that's pretty cool too. And realistically, even with just a few months of experience under my belt, I have lot more understanding at this point of parenthood already.
So my biggest challenging coming up is focusing all of my attention on the baby and not trying to multi-task as I am want to do. I am interested in child development, particularly that of my own child, but I also have a hard time figuring out what I can do with her. Unlike children speak and communicate their needs, the direct feedback I get is based on facial reactions and gut instinct. The long-term effects of tummy time, nonsense conversations, playing Mozart or other classical music, or explaining & narrating my life for Helena are impossible to analyze in the moment. But I guess I should close the computer, turn off Netflix, and stop washing dishes or folding laundry at least some of the time and trust the science. It's funny but when you break it down with how much sleeping Helena does these days there's really very little "alert" time with her in a given day.
So a few ideas for the next 6 weeks with her and for myself, acknowledging that I may or may not accomplish even half of these things and I'll probably come back and edit this sometime in the next day or so:
Everyday stuff:
1. Learn (practice) Russian - goal -15-30 minutes/day
2. READ - 1 hour a day -> Atlantic magazine catch up from the year and Childhood development books and if I can get around to it since it's been ages, an actual book. I'd also like to find, buy, and read some French children's storybooks.
3. House Exercise w/baby - goal 15 min./day. Time to trim some of that stomach fat
4. Silicon Valley - 1 episode/day. Heard it's a great series. Looking forward to it.
5. Helena play time - tummy time, walks with Sherlock (not sure if I can count this here), conversations, swim lessons, and to be determined with the help of #2 reading and lots of Youtube videos.
Less frequently:
6. House projects - Need to research new appliance machines, fix fence, move/make new garden, outdoor shower (probably too ambitious with this last one).
7. School projects - French newsletter, Quebec and France exchanges, prep. for next year stuff, tennis tourney research
8. New tennis rackets/Keyboard research and purchase
9. Hike - Once a week
10. Ongoing house maintenance - dog walking, shopping, cooking, dishes, Helena blog, being a good husband and helping Maya, cleaning, laundry, etc.
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| Winter 2017, only time ice appeared that I can remember |
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| Landscaping with my dad's help after April 2017 visit |
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| Sherlock in front of our actually "peaching" (can I use that as a verb?) peach tree after three weeks on vacation, June '17 |
