Patience

- Patience (or forbearing) is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances.

WOW did I under estimate the meaning of this in my one of my previous posts. Before Adrianna was born, I thought I really understood patience. Hell I work in IT, I have to deal with some very non-computer savvy people on a daily basis and some of these are my own family(no names are given on purpose), what could be more trying then trying to explain to a person that its okay that the link on that website is purple even though it wasn't yesterday. 

Surely taking care of a baby, cant be much more difficult then dealing with the technologically handicapped I deal with on a daily basis.

BOY WAS I WRONG! 

Now don't get me wrong, I love every minute of being a father and I love my daughter dearly. However, there is nothing on this planet that can fully prepare you for being a new parent. The closest I think that anyone could get is to read and memorize EVERY SINGLE baby book ever written. If your a parent already, you'll understand that not every chapter of these books works, but chapter 7 of book "A" might work, so will Chapter 42 of book "Z." Even then your child will surprise you.

They will want to be held, for extended periods of time, but don't you dare set them down or all hell will break loose. They will wake up crying like they have never been fed before in their life and it must be fixed right this very minute, never-mind the fact that they just ate 2 hours ago and mommy/daddy just fell asleep. They will fill their diaper with the most horrendous concoction that they can create(and to think all they eat at this point is milk.) As your gagging and managing to get a new diaper on them, they will smile at you, laugh, and do it again as soon as you clasp that very last button on their pajamas with 6,952 buttons on it. 

Now not all of the things that try your patience are things that your child/children do. Sometimes its things that your wife or other members of your family do. Sometimes its things that go wrong with the house, your dog/cat, or your job. More often then not its all of these things jumbled together. Being able to deal with a broken furnace, a wife that's frustrated because your job keeps you late/up in the middle of the night, a pool growing algae, a messy house, a hyper-active dog, and cats that could care less about you until its been a week since you've touched their litter-box all at once. Now there is where true patience really comes in handy. Being able to step back and look at whats in front of you.

Luckily for me, I have the ability to split these tasks with Mandy, and we usually divide them up fairly equally. I usually get the dog, the pool, the furnace, and the cats, while she sneaks away with Adrianna to clean some random part of the house, and to be honest I don't mind at all. 

However, patience does come with a pay-off. All those times in the middle of the night when your child looses hold of their pacifier and wakes up crying, then one day they are playing in their playpen and out of blue they see it out of the corner of their eye, grab it, and place it in their mouth themselves. HURRAY! Point goes to the parents. All the time spent rocking your child to sleep while they cry and scream, then all of a sudden one day they fall asleep without your help. One more for mommy and daddy.

Remember though, this game is never over and even when it is we usually let the children win :-)