Our family welcomed a new member on February 12th as my wife gave birth to Caiden James McCarthy. Everything went smooth and the whole family has been enjoying the past week together playing with him and adjusting to having five of us in the house now.
I can already tell it’s good having some more testosterone in the house, and I’ve already noticed some subtle and not-so-subtle differences between having a baby boy after having two baby girls before. It’s also amazing how quickly you fall in love with your own kids, it’s instant. Such a fascinating thing, but it also makes sense.
One of the most noticeable things to me was that leading up to the birth my wife and I both had the moments where we were a bit sad that our family dynamic would be changing. Comments like “This may be our last day at the park with just our two girls” and things of that nature. It’s actually the same thing we experienced going from one child to two in that you feel like you’re going to have less love or less attention for other children when you add a new one to the mix. However, that quickly goes out the window when you realize that adding another family member just builds the amount of love and fun in the house, and you see how much the other kids enjoy having another one around. One might argue the best gift you can give a child is a sibling.
Anyway, fatherhood continues to be an amazing experience and just makes me want to work even harder for my family while of course spending as much time with them as possible. A fine balance, but one I’ll continue to work to achieve.
