Advice for a Soon to Be New Dad?

For those of you who didn't know, I'm going to be a new dad pretty soon.  Yup, sometime between now and Tuesday the "Spawn of the Brewer" will be arriving.  Please feel free to have a moment to yourself and think about what that means...................Okay now that you've had a moment to process that, lets move on to the point of this blog posting.

First, let me start off by saying that I'm pretty excited about this.  I love kids.  In fact, I see myself as a big giant 12 year old.  I love playing with toys and running around in parks or the neighborhood with no purpose, sense of time or care in the world.  Who wouldn't?  Life is too short to take everything so serious and to spend even a minute of your precious time worrying about what is going on in the real world.  With that said, I tend to think I'm a good example of how you can be a semi-responsible adult, while still living like a big kid.

The reality of all this is that, until now, I've really had no real responsibility though.  I go to work, I make it there on time every day and I seem to think I do a pretty good job at what I do.  I pay the bills on time and take care of this great house that we have here in Howard County.  I make sure my wife is a happy person and has everything she needs, including having a husband to laugh at every day.  But is this all really a responsibility or is it just doing what you need to do in order get by in life?  Honestly, I don't really know.

I believe the real responsibility in life begins this week with B-III (what I call the baby since I'm hoping it is a boy and will be named Brenton III) arriving.  Holy crap that is scary.  I know it's just a baby and that people with lesser resources, support, and means than myself raise kids and they do a great job at it, but somehow I just have real doubts about facing a lifetime of real responsibility.

My Dad and I our our
"Man Trip" to Alaska

I tend to have an idea of why this is the case.  It's because of my Dad.  This isn't going to be one of those blogs where someone rants about how crappy their father was and how they feel they are permanently broken as a result of it.  In fact, this is just the opposite.  My Dad is THE MAN and without a doubt the greatest Dad ever.

Without boring you with all these sappy stories about how awesome my Dad is, all you need to know is that he set the parenting bar very high.  All he ever wanted was for my brother and I to be happy people and for us to enjoy whatever path we decided to take in life.  He's the type of Dad where no matter where in the world his job took him, he always seemed to be there cheering us on at every hockey or Little League game.  It was like the man traveled in a time machine!

Life wasn't a cake walk growing up in his house.  He was tough on my brother and I.  Even though we thought he was cruel at the time, this was his way of teaching us some amazing life lessons.  We learned that if you are going achieve your dreams, it is going to take some hard work, fearlessness, and some persistence when you hit a roadblock.  We learned that you must really think hard about people's reactions to you before speaking or acting.  We also learned that "sometimes life isn't fair" and you just have to deal with that fact.  I think the most important thing we learned was that living this way can be fun.  He saw a lot of places and did a lot of things because of the way he worked and for much of that my brother, mother and I were in tow.  We loved it.  The bottom line is that I am who I am because of the way I was raised in his house.

Learning from the Old Man about constructing a bar.

This is the part that scares me.  How am I ever going to be as great a father as my Dad is?  The dude set the bar so friggin high and I have such a great relationship with him that I'm kinda scared to come up short and have anything short of the relationship I have with him.  I know I shouldn't worry, but I do.

I'm going to go into this like the taught me.  I'm going to be fearless, work hard at it, be persistent when I hit roadblocks, think about B-III's reaction before I act or speak, and try my best to make sure B-III, the wife, and I have a hell of a time while doing all of this.  With that said though, I'm open to any ideas or tips that you may have on how to get there.  It should be an interesting ride for the rest of my life, but I am really looking forward to it.

Cheers!
Brent