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VI. fatherhood continues to be the most fascinating experience of my life. day by day, i get to witness “new systems coming online” – he has marginally more grip strength now, more responsive to words, making more eye contact, becoming more opinionated, establishing personhood https://t.co/z7vuGMUUIT
V. i went to dinner with a couple of old friends yesterday and someone said, i paraphrase, “you seem remarkably well-rested for a parent of a newborn”. i said thanks, my secret is that my sleep has been fucking terrible my whole life to begin with, lol https://t.co/my62NL7pyY
@visakanv soon https://t.co/VbXxg9fwx4
in the first 2 weeks it felt like the thing that soothed him most was me pressing him against me. now it’s starting to seem like sometimes he likes it more when i let him slide off me and sorta just hang out beside me. little sproutings of sovereignty and autonomy 🌱
caring for him is caring for me. its a fresh education in attentiveness and responsiveness, to limits and satiety. even watching him get progressively more hungry and then slowly get full as he feeds is so instructive. there are sweet spots & goldilocks zones in everything
as hunger grows, there’s a period of time where he seems increasingly alert, and he seems to try to communicate with us with his eyes and mouth. he gets increasingly frenetic with this, and eventually it crosses a threshold where it’s all too much for him and he starts wailing
the moment feeding starts, he’s able to completely relinquish all the tension in his face and body to focus on feeding. it’s kind of spooky how sudden and dramatic the shift is. and he is very focused initially. but after a while, this starts to trail off and he loses interest
and as i witness all of this i just find myself thinking, of course. of course everything is like this. i’m like this too. thank you son for reminding me. i could stand to be more attentive to the waxing and waning of my own interests and disinterests, desires and discomforts.
It’s funny- i started writing this thread when he slid off me, and i thought to myself “gosh he’s becoming independent so fast”. but by the end of the thread he started crying and grasping for me so now he’s back on me again 🥲 here too, cycles in everything, freedom vs security https://t.co/cfSZqe9wP6
@visakanv what are your thoughts on this thread that’s circulating, and its kind of doomer elements on having a life while having kids? https://t.co/xLF2xei6kn