On daddyhood

I'm totally excited to be a dad. I think it's gonna be awesome.

And it scares the hell out of me. What do I do when the kid is crying? What about green poop? I know intellectually that I'll figure out all this stuff as I go along, but that's not gut confidence yet.

And speaking of head versus heart knowledge, I'm going to be a mostly-stay-at-home dad. Wow. That's something I've always wanted, but now that it's right here, I wonder if I'm equipped for it. I mean, yeah, I know I am, and I know that I'll do the best job I possibly can which will be plenty good enough, and I know I'll be a great dad, but I don't *know,* you know?

I'm trying like heck to give myself permission to not know all the answers, or even all the questions as I go into this change. That's not easy for someone who always has it down. I mean, for crying out loud, this weekend on my way to spar with black belts in a combat martial art, I held forth for almost thirty minutes on the difference between jet engines and rocket engines and how nitrous oxide is obviously a great oxidzer for rubber. But a wailing, green-poop-covered infant makes me quail and cower.

The one great saving grace here is that I *know* kids are resiliant. I can make some mistakes — I will make mistakes, and probably more than some — and it'll be OK as long as I learn from them. And hell, this is an opportunity that very few other dads ever get; to stay at home and tend to their kid and really get to know him or her and forge a buckyball-strong father-child bond.