I think best with a newborn on my chest

In my bedroom, it’s pitch black and silent, save for the slightly wheezy exhalations of my newborn. I’m reclined sixty degrees backward and have found the sweet spot where the static friction of his soft onesie adorned with happy-faced clouds is just enough to keep him from sliding out of his dreams and onto my lap.

At this critical angle, my hands are free to leave his sides and, as I pull them back, I rub the fingers of my right hand together. I actually enjoy the slickness of the residual diaper cream on my fingertips; I couldn’t get all of it off with the wet wipes.

Surprisingly, this is where I do my best work.

I’m not a “kids” person. I don’t think there’s anything especially magical about the moment of childbirth, or their first smile, or any of these other discrete events. If there is magic, it accumulates slowly and can only be appreciated upon long reflection. I find childcare very hard. Some of it is probably because I seem to be a little more sensitive to loud sounds than the average person. I’ve also always been spoiled with sleep, getting 8+ hours. Mostly though, it is because I, since being a toddler, have always been expected to entertain myself and have enjoyed the luxury of absentmindedness and abundant daydreams. This is an asset in research, but not for infant care.

In spite of this, when I am leaned back in my chair and have my baby sleeping on my chest in the dark, it is an entirely unique experience for me, certainly more than the sum of its parts. It’s like having a weighty, warm security blanket who comes with his own rhythmic soundtrack and who will absolutely punish me if I get up to have a Spindrift or check my LinkedIn messages.

He smells like his mother, too. A nice bonus.

Between the darkness, the weight, and the breathing, it feels like chains of thought which were too delicate or long to finish in the daytime can flow effortlessly. All my trivial bodily distractions–an itch, a twitch, an urge to shift–seem to be naturally suppressed by the sensation of this little chest-dweller. It is a marvelous system, if indeed designed by nature.

I try to imagine if this could actually be something constructed by evolution in past epochs. If you have a baby on you, perhaps you should take the time to be more abstract with your cave art drawings or take your focus off the next quadruped hunt. You have enough food and resources to successfully bring a baby into the world (good!) but now you are less agile and possibly much louder (bad!). Time to trade impulsiveness for planning, bravery for contingency plans. I’m unable to convince myself that this is a real coevolutionary behavior shared between father and child.

The previous point is the sort of thing that is so stereotypically representative of how I think about the world, that writing it almost feels like a caricature. Rather, I choose to believe something else.

He is sharing his quiet with me. The uncomplication, the feeling of being aloft in one’s own thoughts. It’s a retelling of his time spent in darkness and heartbeats in utero. There are no distractions, just a heavy black cloud that wants to be shaped and formed into thoughts.