The more comfortable I become in my role as a father, I begin to see the definitive nature of the Heavenly Father. My infant son depends on his mother and me for all basic needs. If he needs changing, feeding or comforting, he is becoming more knowledgeable that his cry for assistance will send us to his aid. But as his father, I’m learning that his dependence on me specifically yields many reactions and characteristics that will shape his life for years to come.

My son knows very few words, but “Da Da” was his very first one. When he is particularly upset, he calls out for me. When he is very happy, he calls out for me. When I leave the room, he whimpers until I return. When I speak, he quiets and looks directly at me. He studies every move I make intently.

And this isn’t to liken myself to the Lord, but studying my son has given me a new appreciation on how to acknowledge and worship Him.

Scripture tells the believing Christian that a true person of faith likens himself to an infant, and the wisdom behind these words reveal themselves to me everyday. When I am troubled, I pray. When I am full of joy, I praise. When I do not feel the presence of God near me, I ask where He has gone, and what I’ve done to make Him leave.

And to live my life in a way that is pleasing to Him, I study His word and reflect on His miracles.

If you take nothing else from your role as a parent to a child, know that God’s infinite wisdom has revealed to you the true nature of faith and spiritual dependence. You have been afforded the precious opportunity to learn what it means to care for, and to be cared for. Innocence is the true measure of faith.

Right away, I realized that he was choking. How exactly, I was not sure; but in the seconds that surprise settled into panic between me and my wife, I fleetingly thought to myself, “God, please don’t take him from us.”

I’ve never had the feeling of my life flashing before my eyes, but I know what it’s like to see the life of a child flash before your eyes. To have so many aspirations and goals slipping away, before the smiling, gurgling sweetheart you know as baby even has a chance to mature.

And another thing; they tell you that time slows down in moments of crisis. I can tell you first hand that time couldn’t move faster when it comes to a life and death situation. And maybe it wasn’t quite ‘life and death’ as it was ‘baby has mucous,’ but I know what it felt like.

And it felt like my life was teetering on the edge, because my little boy’s life was in the balance.

My son is okay, and endured little more than an ambulance ride and some hours in the emergency room. But time has taken on a new definition for me. It isn’t something that speeds along leaving opportunity in its wake; it’s the only commodity we are ever promised in this lifetime. And ultimately, you’ve either invested it or wasted it; every second.

God deserves all glory for allowing our family more opportunities to invest.

Not even once.

The plan was to do a few exercises at home; jump on the bike, do a few hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and deep bends on a daily basis. But the demands for parental attention are great and many, and I just haven’t had the time to separate for exercise.

I think at some point, I’ll have to build it in like I’ve done with sleeping, which is to say that during the three-hour period between changing, feeding, burping and settling down, I’ll have to come up with a quick workout. Maybe 100 push ups for every diaper change within an hour? Maybe 100 sit-ups for every 15 minutes of uncontrollable crying?

Don’t know how I’ll manage cardio, but I figure that I’ve walked a couple of miles in the house carrying him around to induce his sleeping.

Any tips on how to stay cut up as a new father?

Definitely worth a read.

Or maybe I have to remember that, because the basest, most animalistic regions of my mind go to the next time we can have sex.

My wife tells me its not a bad thing, and that there’s no shame in craving the obvious connection between husband and wife within the physical realm. And this article went a long way in tempering the selfish overtures of the mind.

And I’ll admit, in the race to thinking about our next baby, I definitely have a four-lengths lead over my wife. Despite the screaming for hours on end, the lack of sleep, and the inability to find free time, I am so ready to do it all again.

In more ways than one.

Obviously, it happens everyday. Single parents everywhere raise beautiful children without a lot of the drama commonly associated with this family dynamic. But between the sleepless nights, evolving feeding and changing schedules, and balance with work, I really can’t visualize how one person does it all alone.

In the month since June was born, I haven’t slept more than fours in any night, and those four have never been consecutive. I returned to work two days after he was born, because I had not yet earned enough vacation time as a new hire. Exhausted, I sat at a desk all day missing my wife and son, and fighting back tears of fatigue.

Eight hours later, I would return home to a mountains of diapers requiring changing, rivers of tears, an exhausted spouse, and the bleary-eyed realization that time would rewind in just 12 short hours.

Fortunately, my wife and I quickly adapted to our son’s needs and continue to approach his care with a two-pronged attack. You change him? I get the bottle ready. You’re feeding him? I’ll sleep and it will be your turn to rest in three hours.

Yeah, we still walk around and snap on each other. But our system has made for a more restful baby and more manageable work days. Can’t imagine what it would be like without my wife, and I certainly can’t paint a family portrait in my mind of one parent and an infant.

I’d love to hear from single parents on how they manage the early years of their children’s life, and what kind, if any, help they were able to receive. Not just for my benefit, but perhaps there are single parents out there that may read the message, and realize that it can be accomplished.

The good news is that we recognize the culprit behind the broken communication – mostly, a lack of sleep and a deep commitment to providing good care for our baby. We’ve talked several times about what we feel, what we mean when words are getting in the way, and how we want to better moderate our communication.

The bad part? It’s difficult to create a formula to execute this. When you don’t sleep for more than three hours a night, you can’t pinpoint the moment when you’re going to go off. The best you can do is to monitor your reactions, and to suspend your sensitivities in favor of maintaining good ties.

But there are some do’s and don’ts that we have found make this a little easier.

Do – Remember its about the baby, not about you.

Don’t – Walk away frustrated. Both parents have to be on the same accord, particularly to figure out things about the baby that aren’t easily communicated by cries.

Do – Carve out time when the baby is sleeping to have normal conversation about anything other than the baby.

Don’t – Allow the baby to come between you and your spouse; i.e., sleeping in a different room or chair, eating meals separately.

Do – Remember why you wanted to have a baby, and the joy you felt when he or she arrived.

Don’t – Let the struggles of this child influence your decision on whether to have another one.

Some of these are lessons we’ve learned, but most of them are good advice we’ve picked up from friends and family. But if you use them, you’ll be on your way to balancing communication while  discovering your new role as a father or mother.

As a kid, I was always imaging to be something more than what I was; not that I was unhappy with my family or my life, but I always felt the need to pursue more, to do something that I had no business even dreaming about. And that path of safety and anonymity almost worked out for me; I grew up, graduated from college, got a state job with a good title and worked with great people. But the common theme that governed my discontent throughout life become more pronounced in adulthood than it was in childhood.

And after I got married, the feeling morphed from a tug and whisper to a slap and all-out shout. My life needed to defined by more than domestic and professional ethics. I needed to find a higher purpose.

Lo and behold, blogging was the outlet. And two years into a semi-professional career as a blogger, it is this example that sets the curriculum for my first lesson to my son:

Allow your life to be determined by your imagination, not expectations.

Nothing is a freeing as allowing room for your dreams to meld with reality. I still work a job, get benefits and make sure my family members eat and have a roof over their heads. I’m not dissociated from what life and family responsibility entails, but my dreams of being a writer are thoroughly interwoven within these responsibilities.

I write in my free time. My wife supports and encourages the craft at any an all moments when inspiration hits. Even in the infant stages of this burgeoning career in social media literature, I feel empowered and capable of making my dream of leveraging a passion into a lucrative and rewarding career.

And that’s what I want June to know. That whether he pursues a dream in the arts, sciences, athletics or politics, nothing should interfere with that pursuit. Not education, not family requirements, not religious supplications. He, like I, has a specific purpose that his life must bring to bear. And if I can develop a love and fervor for that purpose by encouraging and feeding his imagination, I hope that it will be an effective tool in leveraging his happiness and worth to his family.

Yep. My son is a night owl.

In the first few days, it was understandable that an infant is about as adept at understanding night and day as a college student is. All he can do is eat, sleep, go to the bathroom and cry. As a bonus, he will occasionally look around and yawn, but for the most part, he’s got all of your basic human needs locked down.

And don’t get me wrong, it is precious and fulfilling to watch him do even the smallest of things. You can’t imagine the pride I feel just looking at him. But I do have to get up in the morning Monday through Friday, and my wife, while on maternity leave, is still working from home. People warned us that we would get any sleep but I was thinking a reduction from nine hours to five.

Not to two hours per night.

And once sleep deprivation sets in, I can see why new parents want to pull their hair out. It’s an endless cycle that you have to maintain while everything in your body screams sleep. You still have to feed, burp change the diaper and soothe your child before there’s any rest.

Robert Frost had many miles to go, I have many hours.

I’ve questioned if I want to do this again in the future; if I would be ready for endless nights without rest or composure, occasional snapping between my wife and I, and a biological clock so thrown off I feel like a have Swine Flu mixed with a hangover. And to be honest, I don’t know that I’ve arrived at the point where I could confidently assert “I want to have more children.” This experience truly is wearing me out.

At the same time, many of you reading these lines have done it and emerged happier and stronger for it. I pray to reach your path one day. Heaven knows it took about 30 percent of the energy I had left just to get out this post.