Benjamin Penguin

I feel like that should be posted somewhere. Maybe even carved onto the tip of Lincoln’s nose way up on Mount Rushmore. (Oh, and I had to totally Google “Mount Rushmore” because motherhood has rendered me stupid and I couldn’t remember the name of one of our nation’s most treasured rocks with faces carved into it.) I really meant to write a lengthy post to go along with the picture that I posted yesterday, but some days, time just gets away from me. Most days, it seems, time gets away from me.

But, excuses aside, Adam is a wonderful father. Since he never reads this blog anyways, I could easily write all sorts of nasty little comments about him and he’d never know it. But I can’t do that, really, because while we do have a bad day interspersed here and there among the good days, we overwhelmingly have good days and I don’t have a lot of nasty things to say about him. We love each other, but more importantly, we really like each other’s company… which goes a long way towards tolerating differences of opinion. I’m glad, in many ways, that Adam and I did not have Ben sooner than this because it has given us a good, solid stretch of time to build a strong foundation. We needed that. I was always carefree and overly independent – moreso in my teens and early 20s. I needed those first few years of our relationship to learn how to respectfully and intently live with someone and make decisions for two. Adam needed a few years to realize that, unlike the rich, imaginative world in his head, people on the outside may disagree with him, sometimes stubbornly, and things such as “listening” and “compromise” would have to become part of his relationship-building repertoire. Years later, we’re still ironing out some of the details, but we’re in a pretty great place.

Whenever I would daydream about motherhood in the past, it was never separate from this vision of having a loving, supportive partner by my side. Someone that took pleasure in the same small things that I took pleasure in. Someone that would look upon their child with that same wide-eyed fascination. That same look of bewilderment and pride suggesting the tiniest shred of disbelief that this perfect little baby was ours. Created together. Nurtured together. Ours.

Adam exceeded these expectations. It wasn’t that my daydreams denied him the potential to be a wonderful father. It’s just that I don’t think you can really know what your partner will be like in a parenting role until they find themselves slammed into the position. Adam was there the minute my water broke, hopping out of bed in an instant and dutifully gathering things together. He remembered that I wanted to bring cookies to the hospital, so he turned on the oven and started baking them. He must have taken note of me circling the apartment in a daze and, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I just let him tell me exactly what to do. Things like: Get your pants on. Put your shoes on. Eat a little something. Drink some water. Breathe. All those little tasks that you could do without a conscious mind propelling your forward suddenly seemed incredibly foreign to me, but Adam walked me through it all. I knew that I would feel safe with him as we prepared to welcome Ben into the world, but the gentle, matter-of-fact way in which he guided me in the earliest hours before Ben’s birth secured that fact. Adam was, throughout the birth, the consummate birth partner – attentive, patient, loving, caring and humbled. I believe it was the humbled that made me realize that I was standing in the presence of a man that was destined to be a great father. Because you have to be a little humbled by this, don’t you? By the enormity of what you are doing and of what this means for your own little world and for the greater world beyond the pale taupe walls of the hospital room.

About two days after Ben was born, Adam had returned to our apartment to take care of the more mundane tasks of daily living. He, like I, had been up for nearly 48 hours at that point. He, unlike I, did not get to benefit from a glorious mix of painkillers and my body’s own potent blend of endorphins and oxytocin that rendered my sleeplessness a slight shoulder-shrugging inconvenience. Adam called from the apartment at about 9pm that evening and mentioned that he had a few more things to do before returning to the hospital to stay with us that evening. Adam, not to mince words here, sounded delirious. He was over-tired, over-stimulated and really just needed to relax and sleep. I told him to stay home that night and rest and that my mother could spend the night with me. He kept pleading that everything was fine and that he had to be there for his baby, his little son. That he needed to be there to protect him and to care for him if anything was to go wrong. I eventually convinced him that he could stay home and rest and that he would be called if anything required him to be there, but that everything looked great and Ben would be a-ok. I think he did eventually pass out, but not until he called a few more times to make sure everything was still ok.

When we arrived home with Ben, I remember the first few weeks being rough. The baby blues is such a laughably silly term for the sheer hormonal drop that occurs after childbirth. Ben didn’t so much need Adam as I did, and it was a credit to his nature that he could see that. He never questioned my need to seek support through therapy and through new mom support groups and, in fact, supported my decisions to do so. I think that I sometimes scared him more than the daunting task of new fatherhood. Fathers, for the important role that they play, aren’t really given much preparation for the job. I wasn’t either, mind you, which is why I panicked big time when everyone left two weeks after Ben was born and I was left holding a baby in my hands. You want me to do what with this now? But I don’t think we could have predicted the extent to which new parenthood can test your relationship. I wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t sleeping. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time and felt confused and helpless. Adam, I have to imagine, felt something similar – maybe not towards the baby, but certainly towards me. It doesn’t make for the most pleasant of evenings. But time, that glorious salve, did cure the early aches and pains of new parenthood. As the weeks passed, we became a little more skilled as parents and a little more sure of ourselves and our abilities and things started getting better. After a while, things were squarely in the “good” camp. And now, with the exception of a few minor tiffs here and there, I’d go so far as to say that things are pretty great. Although the crying? What the hell? I was NEVER a crier before I had a baby. Now everything makes me teary. It probably makes our arguments seem more dramatic than they are, but really, I’m generally over them before we even hit the halfway point.

A few weeks ago, Adam was standing over Ben and I as we nursed and he looked down at us and began patting the soft, sparse hair on the top of Ben’s head and quietly stated that Ben was the most wonderful thing he has ever done. If, across the great expanse of the Midwest, you heard the grinding metallic sound of gears coming to an abrupt halt, never mind that – it was simply my heart seizing in my chest. So few utterances, this one spoken in a mere informal passing, have ever affected me in such a way. This is the man that I want raising my son with me. Benjamin and I are incredibly lucky to have him.