There are never ever enough hours in the day with a baby in the house. Sure, in theory there are enough hours in the day to get everything done that you need to do, and perhaps even a few things you want to do. But it’s a razor balance. And all it takes is one bad feeding or one sleepless night, and your whole life is knocked into a tailspin. If you are lucky, things will straighten out over the next few days, but these things have a tendency to snowball and one sleepless night leads to a fussy baby which leads to tired parents which leads to unhappy baby which leads to bad feedings which lead to more sleepless nights.

I would say that Jack is a normal average baby in many ways (well, as normal as any child of mine could ever be). And by that I mean that we have an average number of problems and successes. He sleeps well often, except for the times he doesn’t. He eats well often, except for the times he won’t. He is in a good mood often, except for when he is inconsolable. Sure, we could have it better, and we could have it worse.

But still, we never ever get everything done that we need to. Not to mention the fact that we rarely get to do anything extra that we want to. But don’t worry, we hear about it all the time:

“You aren’t getting a season’s pass this year? What’s up with that?” - Between work and the baby, I never leave my house, that’s why. Unless you count trips to the store.

“How come you weren’t at my BBQ/party/birthday/shower/etc?” - Because all I could think about at 5am/11am/3pm/8pm was how badly I wanted to go to sleep.

“You don’t bring Jack around enough.” - Unless it’s from one of the very few people who has said “Hey, I’ll be happy to hold Jack if he starts screaming and I won’t make any negative comments on your parenting skills. Why don’t you go take a nap?” I don’t even want to hear this from anyone. It’s hard to feel welcome when people make you feel bad that your kid is screaming. It’s not like I want him to start screaming.

“You haven’t been fishing in 3 months? Pathetic!” - See answer #1

“Why didn’t you come to the mother-baby group?” - Well, Jack wouldn’t feed, then he pooped on me, then the cat threw up, then I ran out of diapers. By the time I dealt with all of that, it was 3 hours too late.

“I thought you said you were going to be in Anacortes/Seattle/Stanwood/MtVernon/etc today?” - Yeah, I thought I was too. But I’m just too exhausted. Or I have too much work. Or my wife/husband is upset.

And so on.

Every week we start out with the best of intentions: Mother/baby groups, dinner with friends, hikes with the dog, playdates, getting work done, visiting family, and maybe even an hour or two of golf or gardening or something fun. And every week we only get so far before things just fall out of orbit. And I’m sure somewhere somebody is sitting around saying to themselves “You know, if Josh and Stacey would just make the effort, they could have been here fishing/partying/visiting/playing/etc” Yeah? Well guess what? I’m making as much of an effort as I can. It’s the life of having a baby in the house. It is fascinating and interesting and wonderful and, quite frankly, we’re doing a great job as far as I am concerned. But it’s a tiring job that is filled with “Well, I guess we aren’t going to be able to do…” and “I really wish we could…”

You want to see more of me or Stacey or Jack or Griffen? Come by the house, we’re always home. But be prepared to say “You look tired, can I take care of Jack for a while? Don’t worry, if he screams I’ll deal with it. Go take that nap or get that work done.”

To everyone who has done that for us, you are worth your weight in gold. To everyone who isn’t interested, we understand, but you’ve got to be understanding with us as well. And to everyone who we haven’t gotten to see, we miss you and love you and we’re doing the best we can. But unless you are the one screaming in our face because your diaper is filled with poop, we’re probably going to end up dealing with the guy who is before we can make it to your house for a visit. Apologies all around and I promise to be as understanding when you have a baby.