When did I become a daddy blogger? -- Contributor post

You could say that a lot has changed in my life over the past five years; if you did, I would counter by saying that you have a real knack for understatement. When I divorced, I was certain that I was never going to get into a serious relationship, let alone ever get married again. And kids? If you could have heard me talk about the prospect of having kids, you’d have realized that I just wasn’t cut out for fatherhood.

And yet, here I am, engaged to be married to the first girl I had a serious relationship with, and staring down the barrel of fatherhood. Times two. Twins. And instead of freaking out about it, I’m absolutely loving it. People have been telling me for years that as soon as you find out you’re going to be a parent, everything changes. I thought it was just a cliche, maybe a collective delusion. Well if so, I’ve joined the collective and I’m just as pleased as punch about it.

One thing I never expected to be, though, is a daddy blogger. Or is it Daddy Blogger? Either way, I wouldn’t have thought that I’d be one of them; suddenly, though, my future kids are all I can think about. I can’t stop myself from wondering what it’s going to be like to see their tiny smiles and hold their tiny hands and see their first steps and hear their first words. It’s sappy, I know, but there it is.

It even led me to start a comic strip of sorts, all about the babies. I’m not kidding. I was driving around one day and I imagined a conversation between the twins in utero; when I got to my office, I superimposed the conversation on ultrasound images of the babies and posted it on Facebook. And then I did it again. And again. Thus was born Teh Bebes. Here’s the first one (you can find the rest at https://www.facebook.com/tehbebes):




I know this single-minded obsession with the babies is Nature’s way of getting a self-centered human male to sit up and pay attention to an important shift in the winds of his fate. I tend not to be the most observant person in any given room, so I appreciate the evolutionary assist...but does it have to be all-consuming? I can’t seem to have a conversation anymore without slipping in a mention of my status as a father-to-be. I know it’s obnoxious, but I can’t help myself.

I worry that it’s only going to get worse from here on. I worry that I’m going to start writing articles where I discuss the benefits of cloth diapers and attachment parenting and how to make your own baby food from organic vegetables. I worry that I’m going to be the person at the party that everyone avoids unless they have a question about the best method for getting baby vomit off a silk tie. I worry that my corny jokes and odd sense of humor are only going to get more corny and odd.

Mostly, though, I worry that my newfound interest in all things baby is going to make me a less interesting person in general. I’m hoping that at least my kids will think I’m interesting. In the meantime, this is me: embracing fatherhood in my early forties, embarking on a new journey, and giving in to the compulsion to document and share it every step of the way.


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Jerry Kennedy is (in no particular order) a fiance, stepdad, writer, actor, director, singer, and web dude living in The Greatest City In the World, Sacramento, CA. His hobbies include reading, skateboarding, falling off his skateboard, drinking, karaoke (especially after drinking), and making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. You'll find his irregular ramblings about life, the universe, and everything at http://jerrykennedy.com