{"id":18298,"date":"2011-02-18T06:47:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T06:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/18\/future-daddy\/"},"modified":"2011-02-18T06:47:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T06:47:00","slug":"future-daddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/18\/future-daddy\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Daddy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is Abe again.&nbsp; I felt a strange itch to blog again.&nbsp; Lily and I just got back from a &#8220;caring for newborns&#8221; class.&nbsp; It was very insightful for me.&nbsp; I think most of it was review for Lily.&nbsp; She has had a lot more time than me to read books about baby care.&nbsp; But for me, a lot of this stuff was new!&nbsp; I learned how to change a diaper, how to burp a baby, how to bathe a baby and even how to put a shirt on a baby.&nbsp; Looks like I&#8217;m ready to be a dad!!!&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..well, at least I have a few more logistics figured out.&nbsp; The truth is, though, that I am still very intimidated by the task at hand.&nbsp; There is so much that goes into being a parent, and I feel sometimes like I barely get by as it is.&nbsp;&nbsp; Still, I know for sure that God will help us raise little Lydia in the way He wants us to.&nbsp; I am so happy that Lily has had so much time to read and think about how best to raise our baby.&nbsp; It really is a blessing that she can be so informed since I am so often tied up at work. I&#8217;ve also been distracted because I&#8217;ve spent a lot of time recently deciding about whether or not to follow-through on my plans to go to grad-school.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve already taken the GRE and the decision to go into academia is a monumental shift from corporate America.&nbsp; So between brooding about that, working excessive hours and just trying to stay on top of life in general, I&#8217;ve been swamped!!&nbsp; By the way, I did decide that I am going to stick with corporate America.&nbsp; The decision process was long and labored, but it feels good to have made a decision, and I feel good about what I decided.&nbsp; I hope now I can turn my attention to something far more important which is pondering what kind of father I want to be.&nbsp; Lily has so many wonderful thoughts and ideas for raising Lydia.&nbsp; It&#8217;s about time I start crystallizing some of my parenting philosophies so that she and I can have a truly meaningful exchange about how to parent.&nbsp; I am excited to parent with her!!&nbsp; She is going to be such a good mom.&nbsp; It&#8217;s already clear how much she loves Lydia and how much she wants for her.&nbsp; I already know that Lily will make any sacrifice required to bless her daughter and I am so grateful that Lydia has the mother she does.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>I got to be honest though, responsibility aside, I am just beside myself with how much fun I think having a baby will be.&nbsp; I intend to just have a blast .&nbsp; It is going to lots of laughs, priceless photos, hilarious stories and just cuteness all around.&nbsp; It will be just a complete blast.&nbsp; I think the fun I anticipate will be a great counterbalance to the great responsibility I feel.&nbsp; It will be challenging sure, but even more I&#8217;m going into it expecting lots and lots of joy.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what else to report.&nbsp; Lily is getting close to the due date.&nbsp; She is in a lot of pain&#8230;.a lot of pain and I do what I can to help soothe her. Despite her discomfort, she still goes out of her way to do sweet things for me. She made me filet mignon on Valentines day and I felt so loved. The steak was ammmaazing. I even had leftovers two days later that were equally satisfying.&nbsp; That happened to be a really hard day for me, but I just kept going through my day saying, &#8220;How can I complain? I had filet mignon for breakfast.&#8221;&nbsp; It&#8217;s no joke, Lily is just the best wife ever.<\/p>\n<p>I had something special all planned out for her over the weekend, and to make a long story short, my special surprise for her just fell through.&nbsp; It stinks feeling like you want to show your love to the most meaningful person in your life, and then having those plans collapse.&nbsp; We do, however, have a long weekend.&nbsp; Lily was so understanding about the plans not turning out and it  made me realize that simple and sweet time together is what she wants  more than anything anyway.&nbsp; Honestly, it&#8217;s my favorite thing too.&nbsp; No  frills. No fancy plans.&nbsp; No expectations.&nbsp; Just a quiet day or two to  kick around with my favorite pal and to just be together for the first time in&#8230;&#8230;.well, I&#8217;m not sure when the last free time was.<\/p>\n<p>Lily gets embarrassed when I go on about how wonderful she is&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..so I&#8217;ll just end by saying this marriage continues to be the best thing that ever happened to me.&nbsp; Sometimes I get glimpses on just how weak and flawed I really am and I just feel grateful to live with someone who truly reciprocates my love.&nbsp; I still have a lot of holes, but she loves me so I count myself as blessed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is Abe again.&nbsp; I felt a strange itch to blog again.&nbsp; Lily and I just got back from a &#8220;caring for newborns&#8221; class.&nbsp; It was very insightful for me.&nbsp; I think most of it was review for Lily.&nbsp; She has had a lot more time than me to read books about baby care.&nbsp; But &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/18\/future-daddy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Future Daddy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}