On fear

Let me just preface this entry by mentioning that I am not, by any means, "back." Nor do I think I ever really will be. The reason I will never be back is because, simply put, the title of this blog isn't merely self depreciating jest. I've seen plenty of "Mom blogs" and "Dad blogs" that update once every week, if not day, and I have wondered exactly what it takes to be that type of person. Such a pattern of thinking usually finds me laying somewhere, vision blurred, unidentifiable stains on my clothes, a throbbing headache, and an immense desire for a calming cup of tea.

As I am not the biggest fan of tea, you'll forgive me if this is the only entry I end up posting this year.
(or perhaps you won't forgive me, at which point I can do nothing for you and I think it would be best if we said "good day" and pretend this whole thing never happened.)

So, Fear.

I happen to beam inwardly at myself after having yelled at my daughter this evening and causing her to immediately break down into near tears and sobbing.

Before you report me, again, to child services, let me explain (which is something that, when child services is involved, you never really want to have to say even once).

I'd let the girl watch a TV show while getting the table ready for dinner and her mother was out fetching groceries, occasionally popping my head in from the kitchen to make sure she hadn't jammed a crayon in her nose, eaten her younger brother, or packed a suitcase and jaunted off to Rio for some sun. Things had been fine for the most part, and eventually the pleasing tones of whatever it was being over were heard, and as such a kind, loving, attentive parent, I went back over to the TV to start something new that would keep her locked down like a tiny human zombie.

When what to my wandering eyes should appear than a near three year old spanning the gap between couch and chair, acrobatically with one leg on each, giggling as her one year old brother runs gleefully under "Bridge Toddler". This is infuriating for two major reasons.

NO! THAT IS NOT WHAT MOMMY AND DADDY'S FOUR POSTER BED IS FOR!...Well I'll tell you when you're older.

The first is that she has been told, repeatedly, not to do this thing before. Many times. More than once.
This is how children drive you crazy. It has been said that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over, expecting different results. This is dumb. The definition of insanity is available right here and it mentions nothing about repetitive actions. That doesn't mean, however, that repeating actions while expecting different results won't drive you insane.   This, is of course, why I yelled at the girl. There comes a certain point in your day where "No honey, we don't hit your brother with the truck in the eyes" just doesn't convey the gravity of the terms which you are trying to impart.

Gravity, of course, is the second reason I was furious. Her brother was, at the time, playing gleefully underneath his precariously balanced sister, happily unawares of the shock, discomfort and sheer inconvenience that would  emerge should his sister's foot slip ever so slightly and the whole of her being be propelled rather quickly into his eye or face or body or any other portion of his being. This, I can forgive him for of course. He is, after all only now very nearly one year old, and as has been previously addressed by this publication, Babies are rather not very smart at all (See item III here).
She, on the other hand has a great deal of experience and should know better. We had a similar discussion about her electronic keyboard when she attempted to use it as a skateboard and I rather thought that the lesson had stuck. Quite simply, I paid a great deal of money for that boy, and she certainly isn't going to be getting a new one if she breaks it.

However, my smug sense of satisfaction wasn't due to simply venting this frustration. I must note that I really do not yell at my children very often. Other than the occasional "NO!" I'm really a pretty groovy, laid back kind of cat. So when I berated my eldest for attempting to join Cirque du Soleil before legal age, explaining to her quite loudly that she had disappointed me and would not be able to watch another episode of talking animals show due to this thing, and her eyes drooped, and her shoulders drooped, and her lower lip drooped, looking for all the world like she was melting, I understood something. She was not unhappy because she had gotten caught, she was not unhappy because she wasn't allowed to watch TV, she was unhappy because she had done something that very and quite obviously had made me unhappy.

This sounds like a power trip, and certainly part of it is probably that, I am human after all. But moreover, it means that my daughter is aware consequences outside of the immediate. This was reinforced when she came up to me later, after dinner, bobbing and bouncing and saying  "you were MAD at me Daddy!", to which the only response possible is "yes, I was, honey. Let's go read a story for bedtime."

The Zen Art of Changing Diapers

Before you even begin this month's article, I feel that it's only fair and proper to tell you that this is my "Halloween" edition. It contains a whole lot of horrifying junk, the whole dang thing is basically about poop. Consider yourself duly warned.

There are lots of things I could discuss in this blog only weeks after the birth of a second child into our growing empi-, er , family. Deep, meaningful subjects that would likely spur furious but polite debates for months to come in the comments section of this blog. Concepts run the gamut from large to small, here's a short list of some blog entries I thought about writing about:

• The confidence of being on the second child
• Sibling rivalry, day 1
• How a hospital treats a new dad.
• The household division of labour
• Home, baby, work, cleaning, cooking, maintaining, entertaining, and you.
• Attitudes people immediately have about boys vs. girls
• How to unhear a screaming baby.
• Things to do with one available hand at 3:00 A.M.
• Grandmas and Grandpas: a Love Letter
• Colic is a myth.
• Oh God how are we ever going to pay for this on just my salary if only the readers of my irregularly updated blog would just send us massive gobs of money we could afford to eat occasionally and what ever will we do if the car breaks down or the house needs maintenance we're doomed that’s it just doomed. (Alternatively titled : "Interesting recipes involving instant noodles and water.)
• Hand me downs
• Don't shake the baby Vol II.

I was very seriously considering writing Don't Shake the Baby: Vol. II (but really that would have been just me posting pictures of cement mixers, paint shakers, and jackhammers to make myself feel better) , when it hit me full on in the face.

Pee.

After cleaning myself off and desperately trying to save the laptop from watery doom, I put the boy's diaper back on and said "to hell with it with all that deep crap, I'm going to write about crap!"

Or, perhaps more universally, bodily fluids. Odds are good that if you're actually taking the time to read this and not just skimming it to make the author feel better, you've had most of life's available bodily fluids spilled, splashed, dashed, sloshed, or dropped on you voluntarily or involuntarily (and hey, who am I to judge?) at some point in your adult life. It's even possible that if you look back and make a tally, most of those are probably your own! Good for you!




then.

now.

look how far you've come!

Most often, you will find yourself coming in contact with urine. Urine, as far as the soon to be discussed subjects go, is the least offensive of the lot. It is sterile, generally not foul smelling, and comparatively easy to clean. It’s a damn good thing too, because you'll be positively bathing in the stuff before your newborn is a few months old.

Kids pee. A lot. Newborns, in particular, pee when they are cold. The #1 time a newborn is cold, is when the diaper is removed, therefore, evolution has conspired for the perfect set of circumstances to completely ruin any and all of your shirts before you leave the house on a Monday morning.

One is told stories, myths, legends even, of what it is like when a baby boy pees. It is said that dams are broken, flood waters rise, and species are eliminated from the face of this now yellowed Earth. So deep seated is this fear that there actually exist products to attempt to prevent you from drowning. These are, however, really dumb. We were lucky, we thought, we had a girl first.

What no one tells you is that girls are nearly as deadly. The same confluence of events occurs and you find yourself with a diaper in one hand, while your other is thrust before you trying desperately to keep the spray from hitting your face or filling your shoes. You see, no one sex has a moratorium on bodily fluids, despite what those dirty websites might imply.

The difference between baby boys and baby girls however, isn't the volume of the stuff, its in the projection (which right there probably explains a significant portion of the history of relations between the sexes). Boys don't just have simple tube there, it's a precision instrument ultimately designed to fling fluid as far as is physically possible. Because of this, your dodge pattern is all messed up from changing girl diapers and honestly you can never expect where the spray will go. It's like in cartoons when a fire hose would get turned on and just start to whirl around soaking everything except the fire. Only, you know, its pee.




ohgod there is pea everywhere

Of course pee isn't the only thing that will be fired, launched even, from your new child. No, that would be far too easy. Instead, you'll be treated to a whole new milieu of substances!

Children can, for example, actually projectile vomit. Now to give you some hope for your future, if you're planning on spending time around a child, this is a rare occurrence, and should it happen the poor thing should be taken to a doctor immediately. Projectile vomiting is one of those things written into things like "What to Expect the First Year" that a person who has not had a child for a significant amount of times looks at and says to themselves "This is not a real thing, this doesn't actually happen." I mean, you remember Freshman year, right? You know what throwing up is. Why do they bother calling it projectile vomit instead of simply "vomit"? When it happens, you will know.

There will be no doubt in your mind. No doubt on your shirt. No doubt on your pants, your couch, the walls behind the couch, Grandpa, nor any small furry animal who happens to have the unfortunate luck to be in the house at the time. Doubt itself will have had the good sense to have left the room seconds before your adorable little baby transforms in less than a second from the one you know and love to something resembling a broken fire hydrant.

We originally had a "Home Game" section here, but I finally admitted that honestly, there is nothing that can prepare you for this.




an unforgettable experience to be sure

It is amazing though, what a person can get used to, and what they can't. Several of my non-parent friends have expressed both fascination and horror that my wife and are able to stomach (as it were) changing diapers. The studied response to this is "It's different when it's your kid." which is by all means true. Changing your own child's diaper is somehow very different than mis-stepping in a downtown alleyway and finding the results of a stranger's bran muffin bender. It's a significantly more pleasant experience than one might otherwise imagine getting your face inches from human feces might be. But perhaps the statement can be made more accurate and more descriptive by changing the emphasis and saying instead, "It's different when it's your kid."

Even as a parent, few and far between are the people who aren't just as disgusted as you are when their finger slips through the 1-ply in the airport restroom, the major difference is that a parent probably has disinfectant wipes on-hand.

So why then, isn't a parent as grossed out as they should be when changing a diaper? Perhaps its because we're largely in charge of determining what goes into the kid in the first place (excepting rocks, slugs, small bits of fluff from the carpet, and Lego bricks). Breastfed babies are the easiest. Milk goes in one end, something vaguely spoiled milk-like comes out the other. Really at that stage its less like the kid is an animal eating and pooping and a whole lot more like the worlds least exciting luge track. Formula fed babies smell worse, but are otherwise functionally the same.

Things change, however, when you start feeding your children solid foods. This is when the kid's product goes from a mustard-esque sticky cream to a semi-solid, foul smelling, creeping-crawling pile of dark essence, determined to do whatever it can to attach itself to your flesh long enough to travel, sap-like, into your nice white carpet.

But really, in the back of your head, you know that despite its costuming as the devils own tile spackle, you know its really just a smashed composition of cheerios, goldfish crackers and apple juice anyway, so you plug your nose and get to work.




baby diapers, the home game

Not knowing makes all the difference. Hell I don't remember what I had for breakfast today, let alone yesterday morning. Whatever is coming out of me is certainly a combination of things I never ever wanted to see again. That's half the reason I ate it in the first place, to make it suffer.
This is then magnified when encountering "strange poop" that of someone who's diet is a mystery to you. Add in the fact that most sane people (read: people without kids) don't tend to encounter poop on a regular basis, and its easy to understand why people are disgusted by the stuff.

But hey, just because you don't have kids (or have grown up kids) doesn’t mean you need to feel left out. With my simple guide, you too can re-create the baby experience without all that nasty, uncomfortable, sticky sexual reproduction.
Just follow the below instructions, and you can grin at your friends who are parents and tell them that they can't whine to you anymore about how hard it is because NOW YOU KNOW!

Level I. Newborn:

1. Empty your bank account
2. Purchase diapers with your debit card knowing you'll have to just pay the overdraft fee.
3. Purchase a small, squeeze bottle of mustard
4. On returning home, pour mustard from bottle into a small, quart sized bowl.
5. Carefully measure one (1) rounded tablespoon of mustard, and return it to the bottle. Tighten lid.
6. Discard bowl of mustard
7. Wrap diaper clumsily around bottle, as a drunk might wrap MadDog 20/20 at 2 am on a Saturday night.
8. Place bottle/diaper on a flat, floor level surface carpeted bedrooms work well for this.
9. Weighing either 150 lbs, or finding someone who does, jump on bottle.
10. The resulting spray will likely blow the diaper clean across your room, spattering a thin layer of mustard in an arc not unlike a Jackson Pollock painting. Contemplate what you have done to deserve this.
11. Didn't you feed the mustard bottle?
12. Didn't you care for it?
13. You bought it clothes, and keep it warm right?
14. As you attempt to clean the harrowing mess, contemplate how exactly you went from being the clever, cute guy at parties to being on your hands and knees, wrist deep in shi- er, mustard.

Today,

My son was born at 10:12 pm today, 9.15.09.
7 lbs, 0 oz

A way with words.

Learning to speak is one of the most exciting parts of a child's development. Oh certainly partly because you're starting to get a glimpse as to the thought processes and opinions and ideas that make up this little person you've been really wanting to get to *know* so badly. But there's also another, lesser known aspect of the whole process. The sense of adventure.

Few parents know what exactly they're getting into when bringing a developing one or two year old into the public sphere. What makes this truly dangerous is the fact that your child's sponge like brain is absorbing everything at a disturbing rate. Even, almost especially, things you don't pay attention to in your everyday speech.

You already know the basic idea that this article is built on, little kids pick up words that you don't want them to say.

It just takes once, really. When changing a diaper, you accidentally dip your finger in the peanut butter-like sludge that leaks from your child on a regular schedule, and the next thing you know, she's happily trotting up to things and saying "DAMMIT!" It happens to everyone, and not only is it not new or special, for the most part its also incredibly easy to correct.




oh god, we don't own any peanut butter...

Specifically, you use a counter-phrase. Kids in general simply want two things, attention and praise. In this case, you simply need to convince them that "Dammit" is the improper pronunciation of "Dangit", and when she says "Dangit" you praise her, and everyone wins.
These counter-phrases diffuse almost all inappropriate words…

This wouldn't be a very interesting read though, if it were that easy. And honestly raising kids would be cake if that's all it took to change a kid's mind.

Counter-phrases are fantastic things in select situations, but they don’t always work. There are plenty of times in your child's life that they'll simply incorporate your great idea into material they'll use for the book they'll write and later split the profits with the therapist.

For example;

Apparently, my wife and I apologize a lot. This is something that I kind of already knew. But nothing in this world has been able to highlight it quite like my daughter bumping into my leg and saying in her tiny, adorable voice, "sory."

At first of course this seems like a great thing, what a polite little girl you say. And you smile. But then, you notice her saying it, a lot. She'll say it when it is not appropriate to say, she'll say it when it is *least* appropriate to say.

"sory." she says when trying to grab for something she shouldn't have.
"sory." she says when dropping a stuffed animal.
"sory." she says, when walking down the street and she trips .
"sory." she says, when playing quietly by herself, in the corner, facing the wall.

You, of course, being a parent, chuckle quietly to yourself and tell yourself that this is just a phase, and you take steps to correct it with a counter-phrase. How about "No, honey, it was my fault", as an example?
She learns this too, and now, when the nice cashier lady smiles and waves, she's treated to "sory, my faut."
Then, people stop smiling as much.
Instead, they turn their gaze to you, with a look that says "what have you done to this poor thing?"
And as subtly as possible ask for your drivers license while looking for the number for the police.






just insert dirty words any old fucking where.

There are other situations where a counter-phrase simply can't do the job, as the problem isn't the wrong word, its that little lips, throats and vocal chords simply cannot pronounce the proper words.

My daughter, genius though she is, still lives in a world where zoos are populated by "Arigadors" (alligators) and "Warus" (walrus). She eats "geddy" (spaghetti) and "chapup" (Ketchup), her favourite fruit seems to be "sawberries" (strawberries) and "balalas" (bananas). Most, but not all of these are easy enough to puzzle out, largely because at this stage, she can point and grab for what she wants, or what she's referring to.

This, non-parents, is why it seems like parents are able to understand what their kids are speaking. Sure there's a little bit of parent/kid translation, but mostly we just get used to it because by the time you see our little works-in-progress, they've already said "chapup" eight billion times…
…by breakfast.

There are, of course, certain times that this deficiency passes from the realm of cute or annoying into the downright embarrassing. Of course, even if you aren't a parent you've heard the stories or even heard children directly mispronounce "Truck" or "Frog" at the opportune moment for the 13 year old that lives in the back of your brain to pop up and giggle.




Oh yeah you're real mature.

Other words that provide a great deal of entertainment when shouted loudly in public:

Fog
Ship
Pitch

Essentially, think about words a 13 year old would use trying to get around the rules and your two year old is probably saying them "unintentionally". Finally then, you can come to the horrific conclusion I have… they're practicing.

But this is all a basic part of growing up, as we learn what is and is not appropriate in any given situation. So we are granted plenty "teachable moments" wherein our children get a chance to encounter these options.

You can imagine it now, you're walking through a Big Box retailer, because this is what you do with your days. (Big box stores are the entertaining, child-safe alternative for having a life.) This is the moment your little one has decided upon, the moment that you and she will learn together.

She reaches her hand up as far and as excited as she possibly can at her height and age. This happens to be about the realm of your crotch, and only a quick dodge can save you.

She then shouts excitedly at the latest object of her affection, just as the big box employee comes around the corner, to see you leaning over your daughter as she shouts.

"Very good" you say "that is indeed a clock."

"Next time, see if you can pronounce the 'L'".

Dad Time

"Well spent" weekends take on a whole new meaning when you're a father. It's not that I don't still occasionally get out of work on a Friday afternoon and announce to the world while ripping off my tie that "IMMA GET TORE UP!", it's really just that the phrase means something a little different than it used to. Instead of being a portend to me slogging enough Ketel One to void the warranty on my rental liver, its now a dedication to myself. Indeed, you could call it a pact, to say that I will do whatever it is that I can do to absolutely destroy whatever vestiges of connective tissue may remain in my knee joints.

This is a two part process.

Step 1: Feed child breakfast.
Step 2: Attempt to go outside of your home.

Inevitably, at some point near the beginning of your adventure, the child will ask to be carried. This is understandable as evolution has cursed them with short, stubby legs better suited for kicking fathers in places that will reduce the possibilities of siblings than for actually getting them from place to place.

Carrying your kid, combined with breakfast, and the sack of lead-dust quick-crete she somehow managed to devour overnight is the perfect recipe for guaranteeing that you'll be using a walking cane at the ripe old age of 30.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here, and that's just the morning.

First, we'll set the scene.
On the weekends, I take over and become chief parent in charge. I do this for a few reasons.

First, doing the same job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week sucks. So I like to give my wife a break.

Second, it's important to spend dedicated time with your kids. Specifically, it's important to spend time with the kids that isn't all fun and games. It’s not fair for Mom to be the only person who says "no", and for Dad to be all Parks and Zoos. I'm sure there's a whole web community dedicated to the issues that come out of that kind of lack of balance.

Third, my wife is pregnant. And any human being that asks a pregnant woman to do something that they themselves are capable of will swiftly find themselves reduced to a steaming pile of ash, if they are lucky. Unlucky ones will only be able to wish for such a gloriously quick death.

So with this stuff in mind, Friday evening comes, and Dad takes over the household. In a smooth swift transition that third world governments can only dream of, my crack team of experts (read: me and my wife) decide on a plan for the weekend, and I become its enforcer.

Now, I say enforcer for a reason. I'm a bit more dedicated to schedules than my wife is. When I say "a bit" I really mean that I am a Drill Sergeant, who's only goal becomes getting what needs to be done, and done on time. Perhaps this is a male thing, perhaps instead it lies in my upbringing, or, more likely, it has to do with the fact that I don't stay home with the kid all day and therefore have the renewed energy and patience only achievable by one who is not exposed to someone who wanders around holding the bowl of her practice potty taking sips from it and calling it soup for 8 hours a day (though my co-workers may disagree).

So, when Dad is on duty, we follow the rules. The Schedule. The Plan.
The Plan is as follows;

8:00 AM : Wake.
8:02 AM : Brush teeth, brush child's teeth
8:04 AM : Downstairs for breakfast
8:05 AM - 8:35 AM : Prepare/Eat breakfast (preferably waffles, or maybe crepes with fresh cut fruit)
8:35 AM - 9:00 AM: Get dressed
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Errands (usually grocery shopping)
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM: Lunch, this must be timed precisely because of the next entry
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Naptime. The child will sleep during this period to refresh herself for the day.
2:00 PM - 2:30 PM: Break. This is where we warm up for the afternoon. Cool off for a while.
2:30 PM - 4:00 PM: Play at the park! I'm not heartless, the kid gets to go outside and play for a bit, get some fresh air.
4:00 PM - 4:15 PM: Snack time.
4:15 PM - 6:00 PM: Attend to afternoon errands if any remain. If not, calm play in the house.
6:00 PM - 6:30 PM: Prepare Dinner
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM: Eat dinner
7:30 PM - 8:00 PM: Cleanup, then calm play.
8:00 PM - 8:15 PM: Bedtime ritual, change diaper, brush teeth, read a book.
8:15 PM : Sleep until 8:00 AM Sunday, repeat.

This is Dad's day. Note that when Dad is in charge, no detail is left untended to.
When Dad is in charge, this shit is on the ball.

Now, with such a regimented day, it’s probably easy to imagine that things might go a little off course here and there. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The end result of the above schedule essentially boils down to the following:

6:30 AM: Kid wakes up screaming about the fact that she has a trail of poop from one end of the bed to the other. Honestly, I'd scream too. I change the diaper, and put her back to bed, maybe with a book or two to keep her entertained, so I can sleep till 8.

9:30 AM: Wake up, stagger to get the kid, who has since given up on her parents and gone back to sleep. Wake her up, talk about how awesome the park will be, especially the swings.

9:50 AM: Facebook

10:20 AM: Breakfast, I guess. (Cereal) Assure her that if she does well at breakfast, we'll spend extra time on the slide at the park!

10:50 AM: Oh hell we needed to run errands we still have time don't we quick get her dressed no she doesn't care if she wore it yesterday there are no stains on it its good lets go!

11:59 AM: Continued behavior such as crying and rubbing eyes indicates that child is hungry and exhausted, prompting parents to actually look at clock. Promise that it's going to be okay because after her nap we'll go to the park.

12:50 PM: Lunch, but oh God all the food we have is frozen or needs to be prepared.

1:30 PM: Lunch (Cereal) Assure her that if she does well at lunch, we'll spend extra time on the climbing wall at the park!

2:00 PM: Naptime

3:30 PM: Kid stops screaming and is now (probably) asleep, but you don't dare check on her because you might wake her up.

3:45 PM: she's up.

3:46 PM: maybe?

3:47 PM: yep she's up

3:57 PM: After a successful diaper change she is now sleeping peacefully at last thank God and all the Saints in Heaven above. Console yourself that some time at the park will make up for all of this.

5:00 PM: Wake from nap

6:10 PM: Kid wakes from nap.

6:11 PM: Facebook.

7:00 PM: Oh crap we forgot to get Groceries earlier and all that's in the fridge is potential half-meals, cursed by the laws of nature to live a dual, semi-life until their companion parts are brought to bear. But its cool we'll just pop over to the grocery store that's 5 minutes away, get what's on the list and come home, eat and put the kid to bed. Oh, and stop at the park for just a few minutes.

8:30 PM: Finish picking up Chick-Fil-A because it was the healthiest thing you could think of at the last minute that wouldn't take an hour to get ready.

8:45 PM: The kid has successfully eaten one grape, and now refuses to listen to the slightest indication that she should so much as put her tongue on her $6 chicken sandwich that you spent ten minutes and a half a pint of blood cutting into baby-bite sized chunks.

9:10 PM: Kid eats. (cereal)

9:30 PM: Bedtime ritual (all joking aside, this is the holy grail of the day. this stays the same if at all humanly possible)

2:30 AM: AW FUCK WE NEVER WENT TO THE PARK

So essentially what this boils down to is that I get a taste of not only what my Wife's day is like when I'm at work, but I also get a nifty taste of Humble Pie. When you're exhausted at the end of a day that's been utterly ruined by nothing in particular, and you climb into bed, in shambles and wracked with guilt for the things that left undone, there is one thing that should make it all worthwhile;

That special moment when you're putting your daughter to bed.

When you lay her down on her new toddler bed, whose sizable mattress makes the poor thing look minuscule and tiny and helpless, and she looks up at you in the room lit only by her nightlight, and you can see her huge, soulful eyes staring up at you.

Those pools of light that gaze upon you with the awe and reverence only the very young can have for their parents, that seem to say with every tiny breath of her body that you are the arbiter of all that is good in her world.

That despite the ravages of the day, she loves you implicitly, and trusts you more than any other human being alive to do what is right and necessary to protect her, and teach her, and help her, and keep her clean, healthy and happy. When she looks up at you and you understand that parents are the God for all children. And that everything she'll ever need she can entrust in you.

And she looks up at you,
and you look down at her.
And you say "Goodnight honey."
and she says "nite!"

And you look down at her,
And she looks up at you.
And you say "I love you..."
and she says "love 'oo!"

And she looks up at you,
and you look down at her.
And you kiss her on the forehead and say "My darling daughter"
and she says "Mom."

Reports Of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated - Mark Twain

I suppose it's been a little while since I've written here, and you've likely given me up for dead and gone. Well, I 'aint dead. What I have been, is very, very busy. As of late my job has demanded significantly more of my time than it ever has previously. That, and of course the whole baby "thing".

So with no further adieu, let's make up for lost time with a long entry;

I honestly have to be one (out of two) of the luckiest parents on the face of this planet Earth. Since about two months of age, my little girl has slept peacefully on her own, all the way through the whole night. Sure, raising a child is harrowing, exhausting, and children have the innate ability to destroy your self worth, sense of smell, and best shirt in one mighty blast from the ol' baby cannon, but overall my wife and I never really had to add forced sleep deprivation to that already impressive list.

...

Until she got sick.

Now, before you worry, the little monster is better now, and next week I hope to have a post all about all the new wonderful noises she's learned to make right in your friggin' ear, but at the time it was pretty awful.

About four-weeks-ish ago, she got something called "Bronchiolitis". This is apparently Not A Cold. I have been informed by my doctor of this. The tone my doctor used to mention this to me had connotations of bodily harm if I confused the terms again. Likely followed by possible intervention from CPS.

The practical upshots of this condition were, as far as the baby's doting parents could tell, was that she had a cold.

If you don't have a child, yet, or never plan on having one, I'd like you to have some information before I continue, so we're all on the same page. Specifically, when babies are born, as I have previously mentioned (Essential Truth #6), they really aren't too bright.

In addition to not being able to walk, eat, flee from danger, communicate, climb, make animal sounds, fight, dissuade people from fighting, tune in a radio station, turn on a radio, know what a radio is, fish, swim, paint, draw, act, fly a plane, get in a plane, buy a plane ticket, know what a plane is, write, sing, clear their throat, do their taxes, drive, or type 10+ WPM, babies can't BREATHE very well. No matter how adorable your little love-lumpkin is, and whether they are born vaginally, or by c-section, all babies are born looking like Persian cats, along with the associated respiratory difficulties. Not that I can blame the poor things, I look the same way after getting out of the elevator during the morning rush into work.

As if being smashed into the side of a Uterus and not in a pleasurable way wasn't enough, some of the many fluids that fill your fledgling bag of goo have filled the nasal cavity and associated passages. Over the next few days and weeks, this baby will be dealing with these issues the best, and most American way they know how. Through brute force.

When I say brute force, I don't mean that your child will be having long, drawn out, multi-episodic battles with things that look like this: (though this may happen with Japanese children I don't know I have never been to Japan)



Who are you to judge their culture anyway you racist?

Rather, what it does mean is that you will be spending the next few months of your life sharing your living quarters with mini-Darth Vader, only, instead of a mechanical respiratory mask specifically designed to look menacing when commanding a legion of clones, the baby has, you know, their own face.
(any and all parent who have kids on actual artificial breathing masks may contact me via notintheface@blearg.net for my physical address, which they may then use to find me and beat me to within an inch of my miserable life.)

Thankfully, this is a) Only a small fraction of a much fuller newborn experience leaving you with very little time to focus on it, and exhausted enough to sleep through most of it, and b) only temporary. Unless, of course, your child gets a cold (Edit: OR BRONCHIOLITIS OKAY I AM SORRY!). At which point your child suffers a buildup of mucus, and George Lucas starts cataloging your address to reference when James Earl Jones comes to his damn sense, gets some self respect, and won't do any more voice overs of shitty movies that ruin decent characters.

ahem

This time, however, the child's congestion comes accompanied by a myriad of symptoms, chief among which is the fabled "feeling like absolute and utter horseshit". Which, as you know is just plain not fun for anyone, no matter what age you are. I imagine that the only thing that likes feeling like utter horseshit is, well, horseshit, and that's only because it doesn't know any better.


there was going to be an illustration here but I decided to save you.

Question : Based on the facts that you know so far, what is the primary way that a child will express displeasure with something such as, for a wild example “feeling like absolute and utter horseshit”?

a) Screaming at the top of her lungs.
b) Screaming at the top of her lungs.
c) Screaming at the top of her lungs.
d) Screaming at the top of her lungs.



If you answered “Screaming at the top of her lungs.”, you are correct! You are now fully fledged to be a new parent, and I highly encourage you to perform many dangerous and life threatening activities before you regain your senses.

Now, besides the predictable effects of you losing your hearing and your patience there is another part to the fallout of having a sick child screaming in your face whenever the chance presents itself (which is always).

Blessedly, she lost her voice.

Almost instantly, she went from 11 on the dial to “mute”, and life became bearable again. Now, I know that this makes me a terrible person, father, and generically a rotten human being, but there could have been no greater blessing to our family than my daughter’s voice being taken from her at that time. Her face still turned red, but instead of foundation shattering blasts, we were treated to a gentle breeze, not unlike that of a personal cooling fan.

For the next few weeks we were able to coddle and tend to our sick infant in the ways that parents should, rather than doing what instinct and sheer desperation was driving us to do.

There was a downside to this, of course, as there always is with a baby. And no, this time that downside is not the fact that the baby is covered in poop from her armpits to her toes.
The downside in this case was that the times when she was happy, she would try to make the adorable baby “coo” noise which is honestly about the only reason that this species gets fooled into even being in the same room as a member of the opposite species any more. This coo noise is that important. Seriously, without that noise even the most hardcore hippies and pro-lifers would not only run screaming, but be the chief lobbyists of the ZPG movement.

So, combine that with mini Darth Vader HIIIIIIIIIIISSSHHHH KIIIIIIIIISSKKKing in your ear (from the other room) and our house was not a happy one for a good few weeks.

As I mentioned earlier, she’s better now, and as such, I'm a tired guy. See you next time.

A short note

Both my wife and my daughter are ill.

If you wish to experience the joy that is a sick infant, you can follow my guide below.

Step 1. Find an excited puppy.

Step 2. Take that puppy into your bathroom and stare into the mirror.

Step 3. Hold that puppy as still as you possibly can while screaming into your own face.

Step 4. Do this until the puppy falls asleep.

If your first thought is "the puppy won't fall asleep because I am screaming at my own face", then you are still too sane to have children, congratulations!

Because of this, I'm sure you can understand, I have a monstrous headache that will not leave me be, and this is all you get for an update today.

Happy Holidays.