10lb Paradigm Shift

At long last, my baby boy is born!

On May 14th at about 3 am Gideon Emerson entered our lives. This was both a full moon and mother's day. I had a feeling that he'd be born then. Weighing in at 9lb. 15oz. and 21 in. he's got a healthy start in this world. Now the fun begins as we help him grow into the person he is to become.

It's now been a week since Gideon came into the world, and as people say, life has changed. The top 3 that come to mind:

1. I don't mind doing the dishes or laundry anymore. Shana actually has started to call me "Bubbles" because I'm wandering around the house with sudsy hands so often.
   
2. I am tremendously focussed on accomplishing goals and less succeptible to the noise of life's distractions. What's important has become plainly clear. What's not important has become even more clear.
   
3. I now know the meaning of life. Which is simply, to outwardly love others so much that you forget your own desires. Producing a child is a sure-fire way to do it.
   

The most dramatic change was on my life's perspective, and it happened at my very roots. I have completely shifted the paradigm from which I make decisions. Yes, this is quite a broad statement, a little bit cliche and very generalized, but it's true. Put simply, a week ago, I spent lots of my time thinking about what I could do for me and my own self interests. Now, my focus is on my family's interests. I still have my own personal interests, but they're now measured differently. Everything is measured with a different metric. It's relieving, strange, uncomfortable and lifting. The change I've heard so much about in the past 9 months is not so much the change in sleeping patterns, or the surprising amount of effort that it takes to feed everyone (all 3 of us are learning how to eat), nor is it how the money gets spent. The change is how I make decisions, not the decisions themselves. The paradigm shift is totally exciting.

When someone this cute arrives, how could the new metrics not be exciting?