Congrats, CE. You and your lovely bride will make awesome parents.

You’ll give up sleep for the first bit. Especially if you have more than one within a few years… the term “sleep like a baby” is a cruel ironic joke. Sleep deprivation is a big deal – and I read that if a marriage survives till the youngest is 5 – it will survive anything – because it survived the sleep deprivation years, the terrible 2’s (that run from age 1 to 4), and you finally get the kid launched to kindergarten.

I totally agree with scaredy- give up soda. I can’t control my kids diet 100% – but not keeping soda in the house- and encouraging them to drink water is one of the things I am giving them. (Even fruit juice is mostly sugar and junk.)

You’ll be giving up going to theater to see movies for a while. But that’s what streaming and redbox are for. You’ll want the ability to pause what your watching. Even when the kid gets a little older – the cost of babysitting on top of the high ticket prices makes it much more attractive to wait for the movie on video. This was a big deal for me. I had a hobby side job working a movie club, and it wasn’t unusual for me to see 3-4 movies on a weekend – until I had my son. Now it’s 3-4 a year in the theater – if I’m lucky.

You’ll give up some of your freedom to spend odd hours at work – I found myself turning down bosses asking me to work extreme hours after I had my eldest. So did my husband. We found ourselves organizing our lives around our son(s).

Obviously – if you smoke, you’ll want to give that up.

I sincerely wish you and MA all the best in this new adventure!!!