Tales of a new father: the bliss and chaos of early parenthood
Being a new parent is filled with unbounded joy. It is also a stress test for one’s patience and emotional capacity. Our newborn daughter, Mehram, turned four weeks today. A sense of achievement reigned. I thought about all the “it gets better after …” reassurances I’d hear from family and friends. Well, I can’t tell whether “it” has gotten better or whether “I” have grown into a swift diaper changer and adept baby soother. On a broader level, these last four weeks have made little sense to me. I mean it positively. Being a new dad is akin to being in a job for which you have no qualifications. Not only do you lack the skills and experience, but absolutely nothing makes sense. Instead, you spend large parts of your day in confusion and bewilderment. I first realized this when we brought Mehram home. Everything shifted instantly; order turned into disorder, tidiness into chaos, and quiet into a commotion. Suddenly, I had transformed from a man optimizing predictability to one plunged into the wild and learning on the go. From one poopy diaper to the next, instinct and common sense became my best friends.
Another astonishing realization was the power a seven-pound newborn wields inside a household. Our first nights were rough. We spent many hours waltzing around the home, clueless, armed with an inconsolable infant. I remember Mehram awarding me a brief window of attention on one such night. She’d been wailing for a while but then stopped to stare at me for a second. I thought, “ah, she wants to chat finally.” It wasn’t long before her curiosity took a vicious turn into a familiar agony. Then came the wail, first isolated and cute, then continuous and alarming.
As new parents, we wish to record every moment with our adorable newborns; the cute cries, the disoriented arm movements, the uncoordinated leg presses — all of it. One of my favorite moments with Sheru (her nickname and an affectionate translation for lion) is when I get to give her a coconut oil rub. These usually occur after a tormenting bath episode. The massage calms her down and sends her into a deep sleep. I view them as timeless father-daughter moments. Time with newborns isn’t just a mundane sleep-poop-feed cycle. There are entertaining moments woven into the fabric of each day. For me, one such moment is when she snaps out of a wail and then struggles to make sense of her dad’s grisly face. Or when she farts while asleep.
Jokes aside, challenging moments are aplenty. We experienced one last week when we had to drive north to escape one hundred-degree San Francisco heat. It was a hot Thursday morning. Sheru was unsettled. Frankie (our pup) was agitated. The air was tense. After frantically stuffing the car with infant paraphernalia, I hurried over to secure Sheru into her seat with car keys dangling from my left hand. I temporarily placed the key on the vehicle’s roof, then quietly locked the car seat atop its base. You can guess the rest of this story. We drove off and never found those car keys.
A futile search later, I called the Volvo dealership to learn that a replacement key would cost a whopping eight hundred dollars. Slumped in resignation, I trekked to the dealership and readied my wallet for the dreadful credit card swipe. A receptionist acknowledged me and immediately signaled toward another individual. Then, a handsome, mustached man emerged out of a fishbowl office. He must’ve been in his fifties. He turned to me and asked: “how is the baby doing?” I was stunned. How did he know? Seconds later, the dots began to connect. Our vehicle had been in Volvo service two days before Sheru’s birth, and they had generously lent us a loaner vehicle. It’s funny to imagine my daughter’s birth headlining gossip at the local car dealership. Anyways, I responded stoically to the man’s question. “I have four children. They love our family traditions. Make sure you create one with your daughter”, he continued. I patiently listened to the stranger. He then beckoned the receptionist, who slipped a replacement car key into my hand. “No charge,” the man asserted, “enjoy time with your daughter,” and he walked off.
I remember slowly exiting the dealership. A realization gradually set in; I had just witnessed a rare act of kindness. The man’s action had a profound effect on me. It inspired me. It gave me hope about the world. In Jungian terms, this was synchronicity. That night, while giving sheru a massage, I learned that she enjoyed the smell of coconut.
I felt incredibly lucky.
