Silly chronicles of a sleep deprived daddy

My wife and I were so excited to met our first born son! 

There was nothing like meeting our son for the first time.  We love him so much.  Even though we only met him a few weeks ago, it's hard to imagine our lives without him.  Reflecting on the past few weeks, I realize what a crazy ride it's been!

For example, during the past few weeks, I:

Changed my son's diaper, only to realize that I left his dirty diaper under his clean diaper.  I finally noticed when I couldn't find his dirty diaper anywhere.  Then I thought to myself, "Oh no...I didn't...did I?" Oh yes, I did.


Started heating water for coffee, only to have my wife point out that I had the front burner on instead of the back burner.  There I go again, melting spatulas instead of making coffee, d'oh!

Be careful daddy!

Watched an inordinate amount of Star Trek The Next Generation during late night feedings.  I think the episode I like the best (maybe because I can personally identify with the plot) is Night Terrors.  Basically, the crew of the Enterprise start to go insane because no one can get any SLEEP!!!  Well, almost no one.  Commander Data and Counselor Troi were more or less unaffected.  Spoiler alert: I like the end of the episode because Commander Data orders Captain Picard to go to bed and get some rest.  I keep hoping that someone will do the same for me!

Learned a new euphemism for a pivotal and dramatic improvement: "Riker's Beard", taken from Star Trek - The Next Generation, which many fans considered wanting until Commander Riker grew a beard at the start of Season Two, after which the show was well-received for the rest of its run.  I think I can even use it in a sentence: "The development and subsequent release of the iPhone was a real Riker's Beard moment for Apple." 

I blame most of this wackiness on sleep deprivation.

So what does all this have to do with software development?

Hmm...I'm not exactly sure.  Maybe the take away is that:

1. We all make silly mistakes from time to time, it's OK, really!
2. Don't take yourself to seriously.
3. Life is much more than software development (or sleep!)  

<sermonette>On a much more philosophical note, the miracle of life, and the love my wife and I have for our son seem to be pretty strong evidence (at least to me) for both a creator and a Heavenly Father who loves us...I'd be happy to discuss this further with anyone who's interested! You may want to check out the Book of John and/or the Give Me An Answer website</sermonette>  

While we're talking about life (both as a software developer and in general)

I'd like to say thank you to John Sonmez of SimpleProgrammer.com for taking time out of his very busy schedule to talk with me for almost an hour last week about my newly developed, light weight content management system, SiteMailCMS.com.  While it's clear that John is a VERY busy guy, he took the time to listen to what I had to say and gave some excellent, well thought out advice on how to market SiteMailCMS.  I've been following John's blog for a while now.  His posts are exceptionally well written and cover a variety of topics ranging from his thoughts on Test Driven Development to How to Market Yourself as a Software Developer and everything in between.  He's got a new book out entitled "Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual".  His book is packed with all kinds of great advice on all sorts of topics that impact not only how you code, but potentially how you live, from finances to fitness.  If you get a chance, check it out and let me know what you think.  I'm sure you'll be impressed!  
 

 

So what do you think? 

Does sleep deprivation make you as zany as it made me? Does having a child make you think that there might be more to life than software development (and sleep!)? What do you think of "Soft Skills"? Leave a comment below to continue the conversation, I'd LOVE to hear from you!