A note to readers: Please permit us our first off-topic post, after 2Y of consistent CRE insider juice. Kvelling too hard to think about anything else today, though there’s some gold in the Quickies. We’ll be back Monday w/ regular programming. - HS

What are you supposed to do with all this love? It hits you so hard, so often, and in such inane situations – why, for example, does inducing a good belch feel like you’ve completed a paladin’s quest? They warn you about much of what comes with being a parent – the quite violent loss of sleep, the warping of time, the complete annexation of your life by someone who just rolled up. But they don't tell you that a few months in, you'll be undone, completely and repeatedly, by absolutely nothing.

Jahan has a smile that is still a little too big for his head. If he sees me or his mum after a bit, he cheeses so hard that his head near-topples with the effort. He believes both that he invented peek-a-boo, and that he doesn’t have to actually hide himself for it to work. He may be the most entitled person I know (and that is a big statement given who his father is): There is not a sliver of doubt in his mind that when he is in a room, the room is his, and everyone in it is assembled exclusively for his comfort or delight. He gets away with such marauding behavior because he believes so totally in his vision of the world, that everyone else does too.👇

The early weeks of fatherhood are defined by noise and light. You hear a cry, you wake, you do the stuff. You find triumph in a quick putdown and disaster in a botched landing that starts the process all over again. The missus has it far (far, far) harder than you do, so you just suck it up and try to be there for both of them. You’re operating a growing and all-consuming business that has momentum, but it’s still so early in the journey that you don’t have processes and redundancies – you are still the business. You have to just show up and do it, no matter what your day or night has been like. Eventually, it grinds you down. One four-hours-of-sleep night is a blip, six weeks in a row of them are brutal. You find yourself losing the sharpness in meetings, losing the urge to make that extra sales call or hit up another source for juice. Just make it through, you tell yourself, make it through. You max yourself out every day, only to be a mediocre businessman and a mediocre father. And you anguish about the lack of reward – yes, there are moments of joy here and there, but mostly you do the stuff out of genetic imperative. 🧬

And then… it happens. The eye contact starts intensifying, to the point that it would make a military interrogator proud. The laughs come in more frequently, first just a beat, then full Nicholson. He starts to experiment with his body and balance, and providing him the reassurance he needs feels like an immense privilege. When he is sleepy, your shoulder becomes, to him, plusher than Siberian goose down. Seemingly every fortnight, a new skill and new personality trait are unlocked. Every first – from passport photo to flight to high chair – feels like a celebration. “Oh my God, this phase is the best!” you marvel to yourself and others. “It gets better,” is the universal response from parents further along. And they are always right.

The sleep comes back a bit – not nearly enough, but your body has made do on so little for so long that you’ll take it. You’re back in the game with the business. Your esteem for the missus has been off the charts since delivery – how the hell does she do all this with such panache, it’s her first kid too! – but now on top of that, you find each other again. You see how the world reacts to your son, how his presence triggers microcourtesies everywhere. On the train in New York, a young woman clearly having a hard day sits down next to us. A couple minutes into the ride, her face is radically lighter. “This is the cutest baby I’ve ever seen,” she says. “If I had any money I’d give it all to him.” Sorcerers should at least be old enough to drive. 🧙

A reclusive grandfather who hasn’t left the US in 4 decades agrees to come to Spain. A grandma discovers an infinite pool of energy. Maternal instincts emerge in friends and relatives who’ve heretofore never known them. You and the missus negotiate who gets to walk into a room with him.

I am not a religious man. But in this first year of Jahan, it has been impossible not to sense flickers of divinity in our lives. How does a thing that did not exist a year ago have such power over us? How does he infuse our lives with such depth of meaning, and bring out qualities that we didn’t even know we had? In Genesis 21:6, Sarah says after birthing Isaac: “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” Sounds about right.