Today's Thought . . .

Entered our sixth night at St. Joseph's Hospital. I had been cobbling together various observations for the blog about my new fatherhood since Jack was born on July 5.

And in then end, all I really want to write about is a single small episode from tonight.

Czerina and I were in the neonatal intensive care ward for Jack's feeding around 9:00 am, our friend Alice Singleton also there visiting us for the evening. Jack was being particularly cranky: squirming about, crying, not sitting still. As has become our routine, Czerina handed Jack over to me to try burping him, since it seems to quiet him down and make him more likely to eat.

So he's positioned on my left shoulder, burp cloth underneath him, as I'm rocking back and forth gently in the hospital rocking chair and patting him on the back trying to get the gasses that may or may not be bothering him to exit, and much to my own surprise, I angle my head down towards his and whisper the following:

Hey kid. It's okay. I'm scared too.

Not sure why that came out when it did. I wasn't consciously feeling distressed or anything by his crying or difficulty getting him to eat. It just popped out. And much to my surprise, he quieted down for a minute or two.