I can’t even believe I’m writing this post. Eight years ago I found out we were pregnant with what I thought was absolutely, positively, our last child. Zero to five kids in less than three years was about as much as anyone could possibly expect to handle while maintaining their sanity. My ex-wife and I were done having children, the family was complete. I always referred to our son as our “last, greatest surprise,” but I guess life always has room for more! Change is the only constant and it’s certainly been an ever-present companion during my journey through parenthood. After a brief stint as a solo parent, I fell in love with the perfect woman and life took an unexpected U-turn. Marrying a guy with five kids apparently wasn’t a big enough challenge so, here we go, baby number six is on the way for the Wickersham family!
A lot has changed since we closed the book on baby number five eight long years ago. And I’m not just talking about technological change, though that’s what I really want to focus on in this post. Separation, divorce, solo-parenting, and remarriage took our family on a roller coaster ride that I couldn’t have begun to imagine a decade ago. The kids have all adjusted to a life shared between two homes better than anyone could have imagined. We’ve worked hard to co-parent and make the children the central focus for all of our big decisions. I personally believe we’ve done an awfully good job; we have great kids that are surrounded by loving family no matter where they find themselves. If there were ever kids that could be prepared to handle this kind of disruption, I think we’ve got them!
I can’t believe how different it’s going to be having a newborn in the house this time around. The last time this happened I was overwhelmed with toddlers and young grade schoolers that needed help bathing and couldn’t even butter their own toast. Now we’ll have a 16-year-old live-in babysitter and we already have people clamoring to rock the baby to sleep and change its diapers. What! We’ll see how long that lasts. No matter how that situation plays out (and I have some thoughts about just how long changing diapers is going to remain appealing to 10-year-old girls) things are definitely going to be different this time around. For one thing, our “go bag” for labor had a DVD player in it. Go back and read that again. We brought a DVD player to the labor and delivery room. We just toured the hospitals birthing center and one of the first things they covered was Wi-Fi availability. Yeah, things have changed a little since 2010.
So this is where we get to the GeekDad part of this post. I have aggressively ignored baby products for most of the last decade. We get pitched so many new products to review here at GeekDad (and GeekMom) and for years I have just let them roll on by. Well it’s time to add a new filter to the inbox. I’m so excited to hear about EVERYTHING that our vendors have to offer for expectant families and, eventually, newborns. I can’t wait to learn all about the things that are in the market (or coming to market) that I couldn’t have even dreamed about in 2010. I am reaching out right now to purveyors of all things maternity and I can’t wait to share what we find with all the GeekFamily readers. I’d love to hear your thoughts about what worked for you and what didn’t, your burning questions about new products, and any clever, geeky ideas you have about how to manage a family with six children! Add comments to this post or send questions, ideas for posts, or products you’d love to see reviewed to chris@geekdad.com. I’m really looking forward to bringing you along on this journey with our family!
You can follow along on Instagram via @wickerbaby and keep tabs on our progress and see all the cool new baby stuff we’ll be testing out!
