We made it, we saw the light of the morning…
The first night with just Zeek and myself wasn’t too terrible. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy as Zeek is not a good sleeper. We had a good run until 00:50 and after that, it was pretty hard as he woke up maybe a dozen times between then and 08:00. The worst one was at 00:50 where he seemed to have woken from a nightmare and couldn’t stop crying for 30 or 40 min … the next times, were just waking up and a 5-10 min calming him down and back to sleep.
So, we survived even though it was tough, it wasn’t impossible.
The boyz night in
Today is the first night that I will spend with Zeek by myself as Danielle is in Sydney for a birthday of a good friend of ours. In light of my post about how fatherhood is hard, I wanted to reflect a little bit before the night passes.
I have to admit, I am afraid that I won’t be able to deal with Zeek in the middle of the night when he wakes up and always gets the cuddles from mom. I was terrified about just being with him and not being good enough however so far it’s been great! We played together for a couple of hours, I fed him, bathed him, cuddled him to sleep. Everything went without a single problem, he is not in any particularly stressed up mood nor he seems to mind that Danielle is not around (which is a bit worrying for her, I guess 
).
This is telling me, at least at the beginning of the night, that I worry too much and I should just do what I do, i.e. give Zeek all my love and everything will be fine. And maybe, after all, fatherhood is not hard if you have love to give…
Fatherhood is hard
As I type this, Zeek is crying his lungs out (Zeek is just 10 days over 13 months), having tantrums in the middle of the night (11.15pm). Danielle is trying to get him to calm down and go to sleep, it sounds almost like an effort in vain if one would listen to his desperate cries… You see, Zeek is teething, he’s also just started to walk and he had his first “yummies” denied to him today! I guess that would upset any of us! “I wanted sultanas instead of dinner! How dare my parents deny me such pleasures! They shall suffer” or maybe a bit more “guaaaahhh, dah! argh!” like 
As I’ve walked the past 13 months of my shared life with Zeek, I’ve realised that fatherhood is really hard. The loss of the personal space, the personal time is something that for me has proven to be very difficult. I used to enjoy at least one or two hours a day just for me. Sometimes I would spent it cycling (well, when I was back in Sydney I would cycle 1h each way to and from work), sometimes I would just spend it (if you know what I mean). Not that I was doing something super productive with that time, well, maybe when I was cycling I was doing something for myself that was quite productive. Anyway, the point of this is that once Zeek came along, that time was gone… not completely of course, because I have the most wonderful partner (Danielle). I am not sure how it is for other parents however in conversations with recent fathers, I think this is a common theme.
How do you deal with the loss of that time? Do you take it while at work? Not at work?