Patiently Impatient

Bags are packed, house is cleaned deeply, even behind the fridge, and Sayer has everything he could possibly need for his first few months of life. Now all I can do is wait.. great! I have been waiting 9 months and now I am being impatient, how does that work? All I can do now is patiently be impatient I guess, and wait.

What happened is that we received so many thoughtful gifts at the baby showers, and then we finalized the baby's room. The worst part is that we had an ultrasound and actually got to see his face. We heard from a lot of people that the 4D pictures were weird and creepy. I beg to differ entirely, they are awesome, this is however the catalyst for my lack of patience as you can imagine. I now know what our son looks like, and I simply cannot wait any longer.

Sayer will be born very soon, so this will most likely be my last post in utero, but  I will be posting more often as there is a lot more to do with a child that is actually here instead of cramped in a uterus. Until then sit tight, pictures and tears will be posted as soon as I can.

Thanks so much to all of our friends and family who were so generous with gifts, and thoughtful words about parenting. Tabitha and I appreciate everything that you have done for us. Please be impatient with us and hopefully Sayer will pick up the vibe.  Come on little man, Hurry up!

Natural Childbirth and its Musical Counterpart

For those of you that don't know, Tabitha has chosen to endure the pain of birthing our child, without the help of modern medicine. She is forgoing the spinal tap and instead replacing that pain with the empowering decison  that she is in control of how this baby is born. At first even I was a bit skeptical. No drugs? No thanks.. But after learning about it, and also understanding why she wanted it  this way, I 100% agree with her decision. Tabitha was a bad ass before, but this is certainly the ballsiest thing she has ever considered, and man am I proud to be a part of it.

Let's face it, as a man, what do I have to endure? Massaging her feet after a long day, piece of cake! Staying up with her when her back hurts so she can fall asleep, simple (sometimes). The point is that I haven't had to endure anything as intense or life changing as Tabitha has while harvesting ans soon birthing this child. All I can do is be there when I am needed, and even maybe when I am not.  In my mission to do the best I can I have decided to work towards finishing the play list for the big day the baby decides to head out. Pun certainly intended.

But what do I choose? How long should it be? Obviously I have no idea, so I will continue to add and delete as I see fit, but so far here is what I have. A lot of this music is incredibly meaningful, but for the most part I want this experience to be as relaxed as possible given the natural pain that will be required.

Tabitha I hope you enjoy this on Sayer's birthday as much as we will enjoy it until that day comes.

Sorry, I couldn't find any Pantera...

In no particular order.                                                                             

Bon Iver - Beach Baby
Shout Out Louds - Normandie
Mogwai - Acid Food
Massive Attack - Teardrop
The Weakerthans - Left and Leaving
The Album Leaf -  Eherever I Go
This Will Destroy You - The World Is Our___
LCD Soundsystem -  The Great Release
Sea Wolf - The Garden You Planted
Smashing Pumpkins - Landslide
M83 - Raconte-moi une histoire
My Morning Jacket - At dawn
Built To Spill - Else
The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?
M83 - We own the sky
Bon Iver - Re: Stacks
Why? - Eskimo Snow
Local Natives - Who Knows Who Cares
Foals - 2 Trees
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hysteric
Feist - Past In Present
Bloc Party - So Here We Are
Broken Social Scene - Sweetest Kill
Broken Social Scene - Lover's Spit
Local Natives - Airplanes
The Album Leaf - On Your Way


Kings Of Leon - Cold Desert
Joe Strummer and the Mescalaros - Willesden To Cricklewood
Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats
The Album Leaf - Shine
Bloc Party - Blue Light
Explosions in the Sky - First Breath after Coma
Feist - 1 2 3 4
Twin Sister - Phenomenons
The Album Leaf - Always For You
The Postal Service - Recycled Air
The Constantines - Soon Enough
The National - Lemonworld
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Little Shadow
Sea Wolf - Leaves in the River
The National - Start a War
Stars - The Beginning after the End
Minus The Bear - This Ain't a Surfin movie
Arcade Fire - Cold Wind
The Notwist- The Devil, You  + Me
Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Stick with me Baby
The Blow - True Affection
Sigur Ros - Saeglopur
Bob Dylan - Don't Think Twice
Bob Dylan - Buckets of rain

The nesting man Vs. real estate

I found myself caulking windows this week because of a few rather large spiders crawling around in the living room as well as the soon to be baby's room. I FREAKED! This is not the first Arachnid experience in this house, in fact it is quite common, but now that Sayer is about to be born, I cant help but think of the fear he may have if one were to crawl on him in the night. Scary right?. I relate it to the experience the Actor Jeff Daniels had as his character in the movie Arachnophobia. Now I know that movie it very unrealistic, and highly unlikely, but there are some real fears that were not discussed in that movie that I think about on a daily basis.

Is this home the right home? Do we stay here? Rent? Buy? move to the Burbs, move to the country?  Does he go to public school or private? Since he cannot choose these things right away the brunt of the questions are absorbed by the expectant parents. What do we do? Not a clue yet, and at this point it is time to Nest.

Men can nest too you know! I don't know this from reading books, I actually cringe when I am cleaning the house and I see too much dust on the blinds. I think, "ew Sayer can't breathe that" or "if we live in a new house that we owned, there would be no dust". Although the first is more true than the latter, I focus more on the latter. It is much more fun to think of the place that my son will grow up in that is "ours" instead of "theirs" In the weeks prior to all of these thoughts as well as deep cleaning, I have been learning a lot about the in's and outs of real estate. And I actually find it fun and fascinating.

This new real estate knowledge rules my thoughts, and I now dream of that first home, spider free of course. But how to get there? Undetermined.; Short Sale? Foreclosure? Patiently wait for a higher price home? We will see.


In the meantime, there is still a baby boy on the way that doesn't care where his parents choose to live. All he needs now are loving parents to protect, to love, to teach and  tackle the spiders, deep clean, dust, sweep and mop, or any other nesting step that need to be done to ensure that my son is smiling and not like Jeff Daniels in that stupid stupid Movie.

The dad I refuse to be

I love Music. 

 I often find myself thinking of music the majority of my day. That is now being replaced by thoughts of the little baby Sayer, and not in the simplest of terms. I find myself thinking of where he is positioned in the womb today. I am sure that it weird, but I am too proud of it to care. Throughout the course of the day I have hundreds of little thoughts of this little human being. I daydream about what he will look like, sure, but more often than not I find myself thinking of what kind of a dad I will be. I can't figure it out some days, but I do know the dad I refuse to be.


 I started this post by expressing my love for music, In which I have a truly profound and tangible emotional connection to. I often find myself backtracking through a bands discography, and finding out that these newer bands that I love had albums way before the one I heard first. I fall in love with these bands even more and I am okay with this because I love the search and even deeper connections I develop with them.

 Within this self discovery however, I realized that this is how my father approached raising his children. Not that he started with the oldest and moved to me, the youngest, rather he didn't start to really get to know us as kids until I was much older, and it was too late to backtrack. As an adult I can only recall so much, and in reality, it doesn't matter to my parents to understand how I felt as a child now that I am about to have my own. My father was always working the swing shift, weekends, all while attending school even into my teenage years. I commend him for this dedication to provide money for the family, but in trying to support his family monetarily, and working all the time, the profound tangible connection that I feel in music was sorely missed by my dad. This is not a sad story. In fact if it wasn't for this, I would not be the man I am today.


 This is not the way I will raise my son. My son deserves better than what I received as a child. Although work is an important aspect of life, I value the connection I am about to have and experience with my son far more than I do having that "dream" job. I don't want his childhood to be remembered like I remember mine. I want him to explore, to be comfortable to ask me anything he wants. I want to teach him how to live, and how to love and I want to see the world and learn more about life through his eyes. I want to be there for every year that passes, and I want my daydreams of him to continue for the rest of my life. I refuse to be the dad that looks back at the way he raised his children and wishes he had done it differently.

Love you Sayer, see you soon!  

Love, Dad 

     

New to The Blogosphere

 Although this is my first experience in the Blogging world, I have been thinking about starting one for quite some time. The reason behind by inability to start one, is that I have not had content to do so. In the past few weeks I have realized, however, that " I totally do" I am about to be a Dad!!

That being said, I want to dedicate this blog to my now unborn Son, Sayer Oak Ellsworth, and his Beautiful and Amazing mother, Tabitha Ellsworth. His due date is May 30th 2012.

This Blog will be all things Dad: What I want to do with my son, My fears, My own childhood, and all things encompassing that of fatherhood as I see it.

I hope all that read this will enjoy.