The Rookie Mama

(Yes, that is a shoutout to my girl, 90s Mariah Carey. My interest waned after Butterfly.) My hubby is a brilliant, witty, caring individual. But in the words of Hermione, he has the "emotional range of a teaspoon". He's the first to admit that he is a little robotic, a little Vulcan-like in his demeanour. Unless the man is a few shots deep in a bottle of Johnnie Walker, he is quiet and reserved. If you can believe it, there's a term for this in Danish which he recently learned and immediately identified with. He is the very opposite of a loud, boastful, attention-grabbing person; an anti-Kanye, if you will. Parenthood has not made him boastful. But it has made him emotional.  I myself get teary when I think of how far my little NICU preemie has come. Now that she's 8 months old and learning new things every day, I am simultaneously excited for tomorrow and nostalgic for yesterday. Much like it was during my pregnancy, I can get teary at a sweet commercial,...

How dare you. How dare you sneeze when I just spent 40 minutes putting a cranky baby to sleep. That you would have the audacity to perform an involuntary reaction like that just boils my blood. Well, she's crying again and what's that? It sounds like she's saying "Dad, it's your fault I'm up, so come here and comfort me!" You will snap at each other. You will stare daggers at each other. And sometimes, you will be utterly humourless and take things very, very personally. Such is the ever-changing dynamic of your relationship with your partner, now that your family tree has a grown a new little branch. We always knew we wanted to have children, but for a time, we were quite happy being DINKs (double income, no kids!). We partied, went on vacations, took random weekend getaways, and went to restaurants and movies on a whim. All of that started to slow before we made the decision to try and start a family. We were theoretically ready to take on the ch...