More than three months ago I posted about the birth of my beautiful daughter (beautiful like her Mama!). Since then I have watched the precious and occasionally precocious baby girl grow from a tiny newborn to a noise-making/talkative baby. She’ll be a toddler soon - before I know what’s happened — and she’ll likely be talking (with actual words) before that!!

Life has changed tremendously, of course, because now there is a third person in our house - a little person who relies on us to take care of her. That absolute need is fascinating to me. Only human babies are so utterly helpless when they are born. Other animals’ babies are typically able to walk around and often can even get their own food right after birth.

This reliance on her parents for her entire well-being makes me worry for Grace at times, other times causes me to feel overwhelmed, and occasionally leads me to feel very grateful that I get to be the Father of this little baby girl. It certainly is a big responsibility, and early on it’s mostly about caring for her physical needs. Now, as she develops more every day, she also has more emotional and intellectual needs. That baby just lights up like a lamp when you start talking to her.

Sometimes it seems like she’s just waiting for you to talk to her. She watches everything! You can talk to her, especially when she is in a good mood, and she will talk right back with a big “Ah!” or a cute “Goo!” Right now we don’t otherwise actually see how she is learning from us, but I’m just waiting for the first time I see her do something that her Mom or I do. Hopefully it will be something good.

A number of years ago I was standing next to my cousin’s three or four year old boy. He was just watching me and talking like crazy. I put my hands in the pockets of my jeans. The little boy stopped talking, smiled real big, and shoved both his hands down his overall pockets as far as they would go. It was cute, but it also made me feel responsible.

I’m learning a lot about what it learns to be responsible. Responsibility is not something that I am particularly good at. Since my beautiful wife and I got married on that wonderful winter evening nearly three years ago, I have learned a lot about what it means to put others first. I never really had to do that before I got married. But being responsible was part of the promise that I made to my wife when we made our vows.

Yesterday she and I were discussing that though life has changed as our little family has grown from two to three (excluding the poor cat, who has weathered the changed admirably, all things considered), really we have been quite blessed to have a daughter who sleeps when she is supposed to and mostly only fusses when she’s tired or hungry. It’s not like she’s is able, yet, to tell us when she is tired or hungry, so that’s how she communicates her needs to us.

I will be posting more about being a Dad, not just because I now have the background, but also because I want to ensure that what I’m learning is being synthesized. I don’t want to turn 40 or 50 one day and wonder then, for the first time, how my family has grown and changed and how I’ve changed and learned along the way. I hope to be observing and learning consciously all along the way.