Dylan Stafford

It’s 6:07AM and I’ve been up for an hour and a half. My alarm was set for 5:30, but about 4:45 our new baby was crying and I heard my mom getting the bottle ready and I got up and relieved her.

Mom had taken the night shift, feeding and diapering and caring for our 28-day-old son Christian. She and I have alternated nights since Christian arrived, our adopted miracle and her newest grandson.

My mom’s extended her visit from Texas and her being here is a godsend. Being the only fully-retired grandparent on either side, my mom is the one whose schedule permits her to spend these first few weeks with us.

Yesterday was my 43rd birthday. It was the best birthday ever, but I couldn’t see that until the very end because all day I was dealing with a bad case of T.L.O.P., Total Lack of Perspective.

Maybe I picked up my case of TLOP working the night shift with Christian the night before. Maybe it’s because even at 43 I still get caught up in expectations of what a birthday should look like. Mostly I lost perspective because I was tired.

Five years ago, when Jackson was born, our circumstances were very different. Then, Marisa had 40 weeks to plan, and four months of paid materity leave. This time, we had 12 days from meeting Christian to receiving him into our life. This time Marisa is a consultant and she won’t get paid if she doesn’t work.

Marisa is consulting in Detroit and St. Louis this week–she’s training trainers for a national organization, on a diversity program that she wrote and is extremely proud of–and I knew her travel was stressing me. When she’s leaving on business I try to support her, to let her know the home front is all solid.

Yesterday, when I took her to the airport, my lack of perspective made it hard to hold a decent conversation. We talked about life-details as we drove to LAX. We kissed goodbye and I circled around to come back home, feeling like I’d probably failed to reassure her that all was well here.

It was a beautiful April morning in Los Angeles, calm after rush hour. I’d had too much coffee per usual, and stopped at Armstrong’s Garden store on Sepulveda to use their facility and to look at plants. I love the smell of orange blossoms and their citrus row was full of scented blooms.

The only problem with our new adoption is that Christian has arrived right in the middle of an extremely booked two months in Marisa’s business.

We are asking for help, and receiving it, from friends and family. That’s a big difference from being first-time parents. We know now extra hands and feet and eyes are needed to watch over a new life, and we’re asking for help we didn’t ask for last time.

Our neighbor Victoria took Jackson to UCLA yesterday, and that freed up Mom and me to be with Christian. My team at work is being incredible, taking ownership and maintaining continuity and letting me enjoy my new baby.

Christian’s arrival created a bonus in that I got to spend both Easter and my birthday with my mom, something that hasn’t happened since I was a teenager.

All this good life and yet most of yesterday I was fighting through a dark cloud, some tiredness induced feeling of anxiety that everything was falling apart. Marisa’s travel, my night-shift depletion, What-Ifs about work, and then Jackson’s super-energy at the end of the day and I felt like there was no way I could keep up.

I limped to the finish line of my birthday, paying attention to what came out of my mouth to Mom and Jackson and Marisa long-distance from Detroit, and trying to ignore the gloomy thoughts in my head.

Mom was queued up for the night shift and by 9:45PM my teeth were brushed, I’d kissed her and Christian and I was heading to my room to sleep.

Passing Jackson’s door, I heard his little voice come out from the mound of lovies that cover his bed.

“Daddy?” he called.

“Yeah Jackson. You still awake? You’re supposed to be asleep,” I replied, walking into his dark room.

“Daddy, can you lay next to me? That’s the thing that will most make me fall asleep,” he said.

“Ok,” I said as I cleared away dolphins and duckies and sheep to make a space to lay on my side. His head and my head shared a pillow and I listened to his breathing. Within a minute he was asleep, and within a few minutes more, so was I.

I woke up an hour later and went to my bed, checking on Grandma in the living room with Christian. I woke up today and the world was a better place, my perspective had righted itself, the gift of sleep.

Jackson’s little sentence had pierced my silly thinking and returned me to appreciation of this life I get to live. Happy birthday to me.