I started this blog with the intent of pulling back the curtain on parenthood. Giving people the real scoop on what it’s like to raise a kid, free of all the ooh-ing and ah-ing and BS. I’m not going to pull punches when I discuss how radically having a baby has changed my life, both in good ways and bad, and today I’m here to give a status report. After the jump.

I’ve had my baby now for just about three weeks. And in those three weeks, just about nothing has changed and everything has been moving along basically as I expected it would. Bouts of exhaustion mixed with moments of awe and happiness, tons of sleeping (his) and crying (mine), sore breasts (all three of us), late night TV watching, etc.

My free time has been compromised – if it hasn’t exactly been cut in half, it’s at least been severely constrained, kind of like my son’s arms when I swaddle the hell out of him. I don’t necessarily have baby-related plans all weekend long, but I have baby-related responsibilities every minute of every day, like the responsibility of not leaving him at home while I get hammered at a bar and the responsibility of not taking him with me to go buy a dimebag around the corner. That kind of stuff. When you have a baby around, it’s just harder to leave the house. Especially when he’s as cute as mine!

Here’s a news flash: Being a parent, even a brand new one,  is about sacrifice. The typical sacrifices have been written about ad nauseum (here and elsewhere) but there are always some that take you by surprise. For instance, I have already lost the Foursquare mayorship at my favorite bar! Bogus!

More alarming is the fact that in a few weeks I have to get a flu shot. I could not be less interested in having a needle jammed into my arm – and normally I would forego such a treat – but because I have a fragile little baby around, I am forced to endure the pain, just so he doesn’t get sick and die. What a pain in the ass.

Of course, with sacrifice comes reward, and God has smiled upon me for the last few weeks. No, not by providing me with a beautiful child through which I am able to experience life from a brand new perspective, you sap.

With football!

Typically, in order to watch the Miami Dolphins, my favorite football team, play, I have to go to a local bar that has satellite TV. In the aftermath of my child’s birth, making such weekly trips has not been possible. Something about mywife needing a helping hand or two. Snooze. But in a wonderful stroke of coincidence that has no doubt been spurred on by the fact that my son was born on Dan Marino’s birthday, the Dolphins  have been on national TV for the last 3 weeks, enabling me to enjoy their games from the comfort of my couch,with my child in my lap, or tucked under my arm like a piece of pigskin himself (“enjoy” being a relative term after nationally televised bowel movements like last night’s debacle).

Thank God for small miracles! And also for babies, I guess. I mean, he is rather cute.