Babies take up a lot energy. I know this isn’t news to anyone, but it’s still remarkable how often I simply don’t have the mental energy to write something (and go get all the links and blockquotes I need for the idea) that I would have written without a thought last year. I get an idea, I start to think about the steps I need to take to put it all together, and then I just kind of give up on it and look for something simpler. And, the strange thing is that our baby is really well behaved and much easier than I anticipated. I don’t feel overwhelmed at all. I just don’t have any blogging stamina.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
24 Comments
Recent Posts
- Day 28: Democracy Dies In Darkness
- Day 26: People Discover That American Fascists Like German Fascists
- Day 25: The Fascist Regime Comes for the Federal Prosecutors
- Day 23: The Fascist Regime and House Budget Committee Are Coming for Medicaid
- Day 22: The Fascist Regime Destabilizes the Jordanian Monarchy
That is ok. You need some paternity leave. If I had had a blog when my daughter was born, it would not have had posts of any type until she started daycare. She was an extremely fussy baby until she could crawl at 4 mos. at which time she was always moving and trying to stand everywhere. She had to be watched closely.
Just enjoy your new baby everyday because they do so many new and memorable things at his age and the months afterward. I really had not noticed your blogging had suffered so you are hiding it well.
Thank you.
I gave up on half a dozen stories today alone. I was going to write a story substantially the same as this piece by Nate Silver. I was going to write about the hunt for Saddam. I wanted to write about this lunatic from Virginia, and this lunatic from Iowa. I thought about writing about the unseemliness of Geithner cooperating with a Vogue profile. I momentarily considered giving Lieberman credit for taking the lead on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal. And I didn’t have any energy to look at the DOJ’s torture report at all.
Last year, you would have seen medium to long pieces on at least half of those today.
Two idiots from Virginia. That guy and the esteemed new governor who removed sexual identity from the language of the state’s anti-discrimination laws. Last week it was not okay to discriminate against state employees based on sexual identity, today it’s perfectly fine.
Ugh, yes, we have our fair share of lunatics. And in response to Second Nature, it’s actually three or more. There were a bunch of lunatics voting for a bill that would allow one to prevent you from being forced to implant a medical chip into your body. This is perfectly sound legislation.
Their reasoning, however, was not:
http://rawstory.com/2010/02/virginia-passes-law-banning-chip-implants-mark-beast/
And best of luck to you, dearest blogger. I think we have enough reading material from everyone else to keep us busy.
You’re probably not going to look back ten years from now and say that you wish you had written that article on the hunt for bin Laden. But you will look back and regret the time you didn’t spend just enjoying your child. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s a good one.
that’s what kids will do.
Yeah, people never understood why I could never manage to shave both of my legs on the same day when all my kids were little. If I happened to have the time I just ran out of steam and vowed to come back for the other leg at another time.
Now, I did manage to do a decent job of trimming my beard today. Although I couldn’t get the left side to look as nice as the right side for some reason.
.
“As our male forebears tracked warthogs and wildebeests, they gradually evolved the brain
architecture to screen out peripheral thought, focus their attention, and make step-by-step decisions.
Women’s brains evolved to handle many tasks at the same time, called ‘web thinking’.”
There is even scientific evidence from studies that the corpus callosum, the bundle of millions of nerve fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, is larger in women, and therefore allows greater communication between each side.
Feminism’s first supermodel was the ancient goddess Mahisasura, as the story goes …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
I have always said that if evolution really worked, women would have 10 arms…
Instead, we clearly evolved to be extraordinarily efficient with just two!
Thanks for the laugh. My kids are out of college now, but your comment brought back memories of moments like dashing out of the house in house slippers or with two different shoes, or (one of my favorite moments) walking around for two hours in an inside-out shirt (during a particularly bad teething spell) before someone finally took pity on my exhausted forlorn state and clued me in.
It’s cool, man. Don’t put pressure on yourself to feed us addicts, we can go with the flow. You’ll get your mojo back with time. π
And if you don’t get your mojo back then don’t sweat it – family first, always.
Totally understand, and mine isn’t anywhere near as young as your son. The blogging that I used to do, once upon a time, fell by the wayside. It’s hard enough just to add to the paintings. I’m mostly just a reader now.
I did not have a night of complete uninterrupted sleep until 1993. But it was fun. Now my kids are mostly in college … enjoy this time, which is short.
Exactly. Your work pattern is readjusting to the new conditions. It will sort itself out. You will end up working even more efficiently. Time itself feels different. The day is like an obstacle course, so it feels long. From one day to he next it may seem like it’s hard to do anything. At times you will simply be too exhausted to work. Better get some sleep. Yet, looking back over two weeks, three weeks, a month, you will be surprised how much is getting done. (Father of three, five yrs and younger.)
Don’t sweat it. You SHOULD be spending time with your family, and yes, Babies Do That. (I have no idea how my sister-in-law manages with a baby and a toddler, though even she has to be ready to improvise scheduling and plans at a moment’s notice…)
It’ll all work itself out eventually.
Welcome to my world!
Don’t worry about it, as long as you drop by sometimes. Just one word and a URL we can copy is commentary enough to get the chat flowing. Pretty links and blockquotes aren’t necessary. It’s not as if you’re vastly overpaid for published work and should feel guilty. Enjoy…
I remember those years. Up at 3 am to feed my son, we’d watch VHS tapes of football games. Oddly enough, this had no effect on his future development – he’s not a football fan. I guess that only works if donme while in the womb. π
I love baby stuff. Thank god I don’t have one though. My cats are demanding enough.
Make us one of those cool E*Trade commercials, Boo. You’ve got a baby, just do it. “Finn advises us moronic adults on the ease of health insurance reform.”
Eh?
Indeed. I still feel lucky when I have time to read a whole story and most of the comments: I have been stay-at-home-dad for my twin girls for almost five years now.
I would not trade a minute of it for anything, not for posting a few more diaries (I used to do that), not for reading a few novels (I used to love that), not for working on my novel or creating some art.
(BTW: I got an “internal Server error” 500, I think when I first tried to post this comment)
Here’s a thought experiment: have you ever read a (fictional) story, or seen a movie, or seen a play, which had as its main topic the arrival of a new baby? No? Me neither. One of the seminal experiences in human life has been barely touched from the creative/artisitic standpoint.
And why? Because having a newborn stuns every neuron in your brain into quivering submission. It is, frankly, brutal, though no one wants to speak of it. It is wholly unconducive to the production of anything creative.
When I read that you were expecting a baby I worried about how much your blogging would suffer — in fact, I worried that you would stop altogether, for exactly the reasons you discuss in this post. But hang in there. It DOES get better, usually over a few months (as long as you’re not one of the unlucky ones, like me, who has a kid with prolonged colic — but that’s not common).
And anyway, you blogging at half-mast is better than the vast majority of commentators blogging full tilt.