Do I have what it takes to be a good father?

While every day is filled with excitement and anticipation about my baby boy, some moments I wonder if I can be the father he needs me to be. I’m not a bad bloke (if I do say so myself) but is that enough?

There is so much that I’m responsible for now. There are the obvious things to start off with, like how to sit up, and how to swallow food. Those two I pretty much have covered. I’m also fairly confident in the toddler years – I can use the big boy toilet with best of them and I am a dab hand at drawing shades on the sun. After this though, have I got what my boy will need?

What happens when he has his first confrontation with a kid his own age? Will I be able to stop myself from name-calling and launching a water bomb blitzkrieg? What about when the first girl he says he loves screws up her nose and runs away crying (hey, it can happen to the best of us)? How will I stop from dressing him in a tux and teaching him poetry?

And then there’s his first football game, his first spelling bee, the first school play – so much that I am going to need to teach him!

If I look back at my own childhood with a critical eye, I can see my folks were kind of making it up as they went along. There were times when they didn’t get it right (Happy Pants, anyone?) and there were times when they did (giving away the Happy Pants to the op shop).

I know it’ll be trial and error, especially for the firstborn (as a firstborn myself I know how much that can suck) and that’s ok, but will I have the resolve not to crack lame jokes as I drive Leo and his mates to their first boys-and-girls-together birthday party?

I can see that it is touch-and-go as to whether my boy is embarassed or amused by me. Hopefully the smiles will be genuine and not of the “please be quiet you daft old fool” variety.

Time, as they say, will tell.

Our preparations for raising a child are coming along

Every day brings new excitement. Lately I’ve been having a lot of flashbacks to my childhood, remembering things that my father and I did together.

I have learned a lot from my dad, both what I should do and things I should avoid. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I pass on, what pieces of advice and what skills I should share with my child, whether they’re a boy or girl. Strangely I feel like I can pass things on to a girl, I was raised by a single mother who was fairly open about everything. But I do know that the bulk of a girl’s lessons will be taught by her mother and I am lucky to have a fantastic wifey who will be a great mother.

We took a trip across town today and went what to was supposed to be a baby ‘super-warehouse’. It was a big store, granted, but it didn’t seem worth the trip, truth be told. I wasn’t going to come away empty-handed, so we got a couple of those sappy bibs, “I love my Daddy” and “I love my Mummy”. Can’t wait to put those on our little one!

Another thing that came out of the trip is that we decided to go with white furniture, and add some decals on depending on our baby’s sex. This will be our first child, not our only one, so there’s little economic point in getting blue/pink furniture given the second, and potentially third, might be different. A lot of the furniture is nice, but quite pricey. The in-laws apparently have a bed and some drawers we can have, so we’ll give those a coat of glossy white paint and pick up some nice decals once we know if it’s a boy or girl.

Just on that, I’d always thought I’d be a traditionalist and not want to know the gender. But now that I am in the situation, I can’t wait to know! It will make it all so much more real, knowing what to expect, and really fine-tuning the list of names. Our doctor said he’s able to determine the gender at about 16 weeks, so we have a little wait yet.