Rebrand, baby
The newsletter got a new name
I have achieved the status in life that my physique long-since settled upon as its ultimate form. That is to say, my “dad bod” is no longer just a posture, it has been earned… by the small matter of a birth event.
The overwhelming urge to pass out while sitting in hospital watching the first ultrasound scan of our discarded prop from Alien:Covenant was swiftly followed by a sense of horror, elation and confusion that something so regular can be so awe-inspiring. Don’t go out drinking the night before the first ultrasound, kids, it’s emotional enough.
There are billions of us clogging up this planet, but when it’s your tiny wetwipe that might just become part of the fatberg of humanity, it’s nothing short of a precarious miracle. I didn’t really get it before, and by “it” I increasingly suspect that I mean everything, but I’m starting to understand. Being a parent changes you - for a start it makes you the sort of insufferable person who says things like that and means them.
The birth itself was an occasionally difficult and traumatic event for me, but fortunately my wife is a good listener. To be real, as soon as I next saw her I hugged my mother and said “thank you, I had absolutely no idea”. If children knew what their mums went through to pop them out, they’d certainly tidy their bedrooms.
In just a short ten months and several days of contractions we became parents, and I have discovered that:
The debate on which of the sexes is superior can be settled with the following simple fact: women can grow a whole second brain just from extra snacking;
I could sleep through a nuclear war;
My son would be dead if his wellbeing between the hours of midnight and six am was my responsibility;
I wasted basically all of my spare time before I had a child. I long for spare time.
The dog sulked for a bit, but he’s over it now, and obsessed with little Hugo’s nappies. I guess he likes having someone around who shares his intense twin passions for eating and sleeping, I’m just glad that Toast hasn’t tried to sit on the boy’s face and smother him to death. Those are the sorts of tiny wins I live for, now that the parameters of daily success have been narrowed to: “is the child still alive?” and “has the child been taken into care?”
I’ve neglected you, dear readers, while all of this was going on. Apologies. I am starting to appreciate the importance of routines, and I intend to make contributions to this newsletter WHICH WILL NOT ALL BE AS SOPPY AND PATHETIC AS THIS ONE a more regular feature. They will not in the future be chronicles of fatherhood, but I figured you deserved to know why you put all that effort into subscribing to this thing and haven’t heard a peep out of me.