Since I'm not allowed to post on facebook that I am going to be having a son this December, I'll post here! I'm sure people don't really care but I need to tell somebody, hehe... something about telling family first, blah blah blah!
Now we begin arguing over baby names! I'm pushing for Sheamus, Shea for short, and not getting a lot of co-operation. Yet. Anyway!
Feels good, man!
As the father of a two year old girl, allow me to pass along the following advice:
(1) Take pillows to the hospital. Hospital pillows are crap and your wife will have just finished having an infant fight its way out of her body. Plus, if you wind up napping on the floor you'll appreciate it too.
(2) If your wife breast feeds DO NOT make cow jokes. Ever. Not even to your friends while you think she can't hear. Trust me on this one.
(3) Learn to listen to your body when you need sleep. Seriously. Pre-baby you could probably go all night long. You still can probably go all night long, but can you do it five nights in a row because the baby has colic? You see some weird **** when you start getting sleep deprived.
(4) Speaking of nights, learn to use a DVR (and/or buy Netlfix) and buy a really comfortable chair - a rocker is all right but a recliner is better. This way when the baby is sleeping/feeding you and/or your wife can watch hockey/whatever your wife watches. Or you can sleep in the chair. Probably the sleeping thing though.
(5) Learn to live through diaper changes. They suck, but they suck more later on and if you have some goodwill built up by being so willing to change diapers at the start (before solid foods - when they are more runny and less smelly) you might be able to get yourself out of some of the bad diaper changes. Not all, but some.
(6) And most of all - don't take advice from anyone (within reason - obviously you probably shouldn't share your baby or put him in the microwave - I mean on the small stuff like how to feed him, how to put him to bed, when his bedtime should be, what type of food he should have). While it might seem natural to defer to her or your parents (especially since they raised you or her) this is your daughter, not theirs. You know how screwed up you are? Do you want that to happen to your son? Of course not. Chart your own course and don't be afraid to tell people what end of the pier to jump off of.