A lot has happened since my last blog post. Of course, that is not saying much really. 10 year old kids have graduated college in the time gaps between some of my posts over the past year - only a slight exaggeration. Re-commitment to consistent blogging is one of my goals this year (ever heard that one before?). I digress.

In all seriousness, there have been some pretty significant life and lifestyle changes in the past couple of weeks. My wife and I welcomed our first child, a beautiful baby girl, to the world. Miss Madeline Marie was born exactly 2 weeks ago and boy, she’s a handful. Literally.

I have had to learn to do just about everything with one hand (and sometimes no hands). As I type this, she is propped up on my lap in a formula hangover. She’s absolutely precious and just about the greatest thing that has ever happened to us. But for the first month or three it’s like taking on another part time job.

I thought I would spend the 3-4 weeks before her arrival organizing everything that I could inside of my office and my business & personal routines in preparation to devote as much time as I would need to supporting both my baby and my wife. As streamlined as I thought I was, I now see there was no way to realistically prepare.

What might have been a priority before takes a backseat to a fussing baby. Time management has been re-defined as cramming as much possible in between two hour feedings or cries to be held. Emails have not been responded to immediately, workouts are a stretch, Facebook & Twitter are checked at odd hours (if at all) and blogs are not updated with any frequency. I’m perfectly at peace with all of that. Family is priority #1 right now.

My wife, a business professional herself, is on maternity leave which is nice, but its not fair to dump Madeline in her lap for 8-10 hours a day as she takes on the responsibility of the early morning feedings so that I can achieve some semblance of sanity during business hours. It’s a tag team effort and we are finding slowly our way.

We are truly blessed but there is no such thing as normal right now. We are forging ahead daily to find the new ‘normal.”