Fatherhood Adventures can attest to the effectiveness of Daily Happiness Tip #8- Smell a Baby.  It does calm me down from everyday stress to an extent that much hugging and sniffing may even induce me to sleep.

Just early this month when an important decision had to be made, I was all stressed out.  I happened to instinctively pick the baby up from the crib as she was making a fuss as if telling me to get her.  As I cuddled her, my thoughts still on the issue at hand, I started kissing her head and noticed her sweet smell. 

I realized how happy the baby was to be cuddled.  Her smile turned into giggles as I began to tickle her in the neck, arm and torso with my face.  It only took a few minutes of living in that moment to clear my head.  I felt better and was ready to tackle my concerns head-on. 

As mentioned in my previous blog on the benefits of being a dad, the smell, sight and sound of a baby trigger hormonal changes in men that supposed to improve problem-solving skills, resilience, motivation and stress-handling abilities. 

In different occasions, a few sniffs of the baby’s sweet smell was enough to elicit a good feeling in me…a natural high.  And indeed many times I dozed off during prolonged cuddling and exposure to baby scent.

How fortunate for me to realize (not too late) and articulate it now with our fourth child what must have always been happening to me with my first three.  Indeed discoveries are not made by looking at new territories, but by looking into familiar, everyday occurrences with a new set of eyes.

I am sharing this to provide a new perspective (a new set of eyes, or glasses if more apt) and help others recognize how precious our children are, and their presence is a blessing that positively impacts our own wellbeing if we learn to live in the moment.

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It's now but a faint memory. My wife cannot hide her displeasure when I recounted the phone conversation I had with the friend who was supposed to arrange for our move back to the University. After a series of grueling discussions, reflection and goings back and forth, my wife was finally convinced that a move to the University is the way to go for our growing family.

But as fate would have it (so to speak), we are back to square one, not being able to tick off any one of our many unsettled issues. My wife was all hopes that the major ones would be decided or at least cleared prior to the baby's arrival so we can then focus on the newest addition to our family. Of course to add to her frustrations, Nadine (meaning "hope") also kept us guessing as to when she's coming out. It's just too much to bear... our patience had been stretched to an extent that everything seemed to be out of control! (of course these were coming from the point of view of two self-confessed control freaks).

But then, all these came to be quite inconsequential when Nadine at last arrived, after two false alarms and a lot of guessing, on March 30. She then came to be the focal point of the family activities and attention. During those times when we witnessed all the firsts (the first time she suckled, pooped, peed, smiled, etc.) and her steady development that made us forget, albeit temporarily, our impatience to everything that had not worked out as planned or hoped to be.

Indeed, when I am reminded (which is now very often) how our children had made me so happy, all hardships, energies and efforts spent striving to give the best for them...everything is compensated somehow and it just feels so right. And around these times, time indeed flies... even for an impatient, control freak like me who is in dire need to grasp at something as all else is still up in the air.

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