Welcome, Myles

Today, 7/7/09 at 12:53pm, my 4th child was born. Myles Christopher Peterson. Nine pounds, eleven ounces. Another big Peterson baby.

The first child was surreal, in that new parent way. I had read a book on being a dad. I had a checklist of supplies. Faith (my wife) went into labor and we went to the hospital with all of this anxiety and amazement; we would be parents in a few hours, but we didn’t know what that looked like. Those few hours slowly turned into many hours as her labor didn’t progress through the night and they did a C-section the next morning. So there I was, having what I guess is a traditional experience of camping out in a hospital for a good 20+ hours, counting contractions, waiting, praying, and trying not to say anything stupid like “Did that contraction hurt more than the last one?”

This time was/is also surreal but for very different reasons. This time we went in because she was having contractions the past two days, but had a scheduled C-section for tomorrow morning, bright and early. Once she got there today, the contractions wore down and they were set to send her home with some Tylenol PM after another hour of monitoring. I said, “Cool, I’ll be back in an hour,” then went to the gym, stopped by the office to grab some stuff and was making plans to work from home. I got back to the hospital ready to take Faith to the house and they were like, “You’re just in time, we’re going to move her to the prep room.” The prep room? There’s a prep room to get ready to leave? Nope. Turns out, while I was doing leg presses, the doctor checked on her and decided to just go ahead and do the surgery today, since he was free, and to save us another trip back tomorrow. How convenient. So, two hours later, instead of sending e-mails and making a spreadsheet for my job, I was holding Myles and having my baby burping technique come back to me like it never left. Just like that, a daddy again. Then an hour and a half later, I was picking up my two oldest from summer camp, running errands, then scooping up the other one from daycare, who just a few hours earlier was “the baby.” Seems like they were all born just yesterday. Time truly flies.

As I heated up dinner for the oldest three and watched Nia teach herself a new word game on her Barbie laptop, Jalen – my spirited child – move between building a tower made out of toys that don’t go together and dance around our family room (the boy has energy for days, but when he goes to sleep, he goes in hard), and Cole, who was the only one really paying attention to Dora the Explorer, answering all of the questions right, I tried to imagine what Myles will be doing, and how he will fit in. It’s tempting as parents to wish the world. I mean, after all, somebody will have to be the next Obama, the next Oprah, the next Jordan, the next one to try to moonwalk like Mike (I’m sorry, but there will never be another Michael Jackson, my kids included… lol), the next CEO of the next big thing. I don’t know what the future holds for any of them; the first three are extremely bright, stubborn in their own ways (which means they’re motivated and passionate, and is fine by me), and try to do the right thing. I’m sure they will all be just fine, and will be able to do whatever they want to do, whatever is needed, whatever is their calling. I think Myles will fit right in, and carve out his own niche in due time. But for now, I’m not too worried about any of that. My oldest turned 7 just over a week ago. My youngest is now 8.5 hours old. I think what matters the most is that I never let a day go by without doing something meaningful with each of them. I think if Faith and I do that, “the future”… and every day leading up to then… will be just the way it’s supposed to be. Ase.

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