My wife and I did a lot of reading, classes and preparation for our son, but we still had many surprise/last-minute trips to the store because we didn’t have enough of something. Here are the surprising things we didn’t plan for:

Counter-top Space: When you have a baby, all the things you need to care for the baby and a drink or book for yourself, you need a lot of counter-top space. I had to buy an extra shelving unit and end table because we never had enough. How much do you have?

Diaper Wipes: We knew we needed a lot of diapers because they can easily soil a bakers dozen or more each day… but I wasn’t prepared for the number of wet wipes we also had to buy. Each diaper definitely took more than 1 wipe when we started. I swear the kid ate some of them because I have no other explanation for where they disappeared to.

Low Light: I’m a fan of 100+ Watt bulbs that flood the room with bright light… but that’s the last thing you want when it’s the middle of the night and you have to change or feed your baby… so have some soft, dim lights you can use in the middle of the night.

Small nail file: Our son was born with long fingernails that almost needed trimming before we took him home. I had hoped to bit them, but I couldn’t get low enough (and the midwife recommended against cutting them because they have skin under their nails). So I bought an emery board to file his nails. It’s worked the best for us.

Clothing with snaps: We didn’t know how we would dress our baby, so we bought a huge assortment of clothing… but our favorite has been one-sies with SNAPS. The snaps make it so much easier to take on and off when you’re struggling to figure out how to care for a baby. Newborn clothes should definitely have snaps.

Learning How To Swaddle: This is more of a skill than a product, but we definitely wished we knew how to swaddle better. For the first 24 hours, our son was a mini-houdini and able to get out of any swaddle we tried. But thankfully there’s a great incentive to get swaddling right (SLEEP!), so we figured it out. (The Happiest Baby on the Block method + Youtube helped us out).

Soothies: If you’re breastfeeding, soothies are not only comforting as your nipples heal from the first few days of figuring out how breastfeeding works… but keeping the nipples moist seem to help with the healing process.

Nipple Balm: Continuing on the previous entry, a nipple balm (like Wish Garden’s Nipple Salve) helped protect my wife’s nipples so they could recover before any really painful side effects of breast feeding reared their ugly heads.

Clean Tops: It’s hard for every pregnant woman to have enough comfortable shirts because their torso is constantly changing sizes… but we were surprised to have that trend continue after birth as well…. we had enough tops for pregnancy and she planned to wear them afterwards, but babies can dirty 3 tops in an afternoon… and we weren’t ready for that kind of shirt turn-around.

Finally…: These are all things we had plenty of, but we were surprised how much we loved them: 1. Aden + Anais Muslins – we used them for everything. 2. Easy diaper trash with super tight lid (because nobody wants to smell that). 3. Boppy – the most comfortable way to have a baby on your lap.

Babies have to learn a lot of stuff, don’t they? I obviously knew that my son would have bad table manners and not quite know how to use a toilet when he was born… but it’s shocking to see how many other things he doesn’t know.

His grasp on world geography is shaky at best. His multiplication tables are horrendous. He doesn’t really know how to smile, use his hands or even hold his neck up. Sometimes he forgets how to fall asleep and it’s rumored he doesn’t even know I exist when he can’t see me.

Thankfully, it took me a while to grasp all of this (I’m told), so he’ll be fine. But man, it makes me realize just how far I have come — even if I never learned how to spell along the way….

Parenting has forced my wife and I to come face-to-face with basic human needs. Not only does our son rely on us 100% for his care, but he has challenged my wife and I to meet ours… most noticeably: sleep!

It made me realize how much I have taken food, shelter, warmth, water, and sleep for granted. I have been fortunate enough that those things have always been available. For that, I am extremely grateful. When you are surrounded by people who have everything they need, it’s very easy to realize that some people around the world go without.

Everyday I spent with my son, I’m surprised by how much I have learned from him.

Before I had a son, my life (emotionally) was pretty consistent. I had good days and bad days like everyone else, but a bad day was no worse than a tiring deadline at work or the supermarket running low on my favorite yogurt. The good days were a beautiful hike in the mountains. (And best of all, the bad day would always vanish with a great night’s sleep!)

But ever since I became a father the highs have been tremendous and the lows pretty rotten. Feeling your son nestle into you or watching his little hands wrap around your index finger is indescribably thrilling. But after a long day of crying and no sleep, the last thing you want is for him to decide to soil himself explosively while you are in the middle of a changing… twice.

I wasn’t prepared for how dramatic life has become since him…. but I guess this is all just preparation for when he is old enough to date!

After eight years of a very static life, I was thrown into a constant vortex of change when I moved to New Zealand. Since then, I have moved a dozen times, had four jobs, lived in three cities and got married. Nat bad for a few years, eh?

But none of that comes remotely close to the change I have experienced since the birth of my first child. Before my son, I had about 1 hour of baby holding under my belt — and 0 diaper changes. Since my son, I have had to learn what he wants, how to sooth him, how to change him, and quite frankly how to care for his every need.

My wife and I have experimented, changed schedules, slept for only hours at a time and been forced to constantly adjust as soon as we knew what was happening (Figured out diapers? He’s now between sizes and wants to wet every pair of clothes we put him in. Figured out sleep schedules? Time to start up your day job. Etc, etc, etc).

But all of this is great. After all, when Darwin said “survival of the fittest”, he wasn’t talking about the strongest, smartest, prettiest or cleverest person — he was talking about the most adaptable… and there’s no better instructor of change than a child.

This week I dropped my wife and child off at a breast-feeding mother/baby group. As I left the building, I had this little feeling that my son was all grown-up. He was off on his own for an hour feeding and burping with his mum and there was nothing I could do… I just had to trust that everything would be okay and that he would be fine so far from me.

I know it’s a bit silly since his mum was right there, but it was the first time I was ever separated from him and it felt like a preview of sending him off to school…. what a scary, but exciting day that will be! How do other parents do it?!

For the last five years, my wife and I have been in sync… we had a lot of the same experiences, similar reactions and always understood where the other one was coming from.

It’s been interesting having a baby because we have had radically different experiences. She had to strain to birth the baby — I applied counter-pressure here and there. My sore arms vanished in a day — she’s still not 100%. I have gotten good sleep every night — she has chosen to breastfeed the baby and thus had fragmented sleep. She is exhausted simply feeding the baby and napping — I’m in charge of everything else around the house.

But all of this has been a very good lesson in understanding and patience. Even though we’ve been together the last few days, we’ve also been apart. I need to remember where she’s coming from. A bit of understanding probably isn’t a bad thing — I hear it occasionally comes in handy with children….

Birth is much more practical than I had ever imagined. Because the birth of a new life is so spiritual and ceremonial, I always had a fantasy that it would be calm, peaceful and meditative. My wife and I would sit under a tree with moonlight shining down on us… and through a zen-ed out bliss, we would finally get to look at our new son (who would instantly smile at us and then use baby-sign-language for milk).

It was quite a surprise to see how messy, raw and intense it was. A wave of guilt washed over me looking back to see the array of towels soaked in blood, amniotic fluid, and pooh we left as we checked out of the birthing center. I have never been surrounded by so much bodily goo before in my entire life!

I also will never forget the look of pain/pure-focused-purpose/exhaustion/determination on my wife’s face as she worked through the final few minutes of labor. It was such a piercing concoction of emotions.

And looking at my child for the first time — it’s the definition of pure happiness. Somehow the whole 8 hour ordeal seemed worthwhile for one moment of holding your son.