Something Special

Just a little writing about becoming a father.

Imagine you have an upcoming challenge of some significance in your life.  Doesn't matter if it's filling out an application for a job, last minute studying in your truck for a biology exam, or preparing a four course meal for you significant other.  The important thing is that something of importance will be happening to you soon and you have prepared so you will be ready.  That, of course, is the reasonable expectation for anybody that prepares the best they can.  You're suddenly qualified as ready more than those that haven't prepared, which should at least warrant a badge or maybe a certificate.  This all sounds reasonable enough to most of us.  Unless of course, everything you've learned and prepared for goes out the window when that challenge arrives.

            Within days of finding out that my wife and I would be having a baby, we had all the books, manuals, suggestions, and anything else that looked good enough to take care of our first born.  That's right, there won't be getting anything past us.  We were prepared first time parents in the wake of unforeseen changes.  The word 'unforeseen' seems like an appropriate choice over all other words.  The type of changes and the amount that they changed… It was all unforeseen.  Not to fret however, my friends, I've read my books.

            From time management, how to be nice to a pregnant wife, and diaper changing, I read it all, soaking it up more than pope takes from the bible.  What on earth would cause a man to focus so much on such common sense information?  The answer is that us men do not come equipped with the genes that give us that common sense in the first place.  More importantly the wives we marry are equipped with evil genes of toughness that scare me more than hell itself, and I've found it easier not to give them a reason to use it.  After all, I needed to be an expert dad by the day she went into labor, and there was no time to spare.

            She went into labor and eventually she went out of it.  That day had made it clear on why our wives have that evil gene of toughness.  She delivered a seven pound nine ounce baby girl two weeks early.  To my surprise she actually managed to go through the whole experience all natural.  Oddly, it seemed extremely unnatural to me why anyone would choose to be in so much pain, and I believe the word choice for 'all natural' aught to be redefined.  But, it seemed that wouldn't be happening in our stay in the hospital, and we were on our way home after a long night of not sleeping.

            The first night at home was different than the first night at the hospital.  Neither of us slept on either night.  It was different because in the hospital we chose to stay awake.  We found that there wasn't a snow balls chance of this baby surviving the night without one of us watching her.  The obvious safe route would mean that we both stay up and watch her.  I am not sure if it was because the labor was so intense comparatively, but that night proved to be uneventful.  We poked at her, changed her, fed her, and watched her. 

            The first night at home was extremely different, though you couldn't tell just by looking.  We continued to poke, change, feed, watch, and then change her again just as we did at the hospital.  However, we were not doing this by choice.  The idea that she couldn't possibly be ok for more than a minute without us was a lucid idea at the time.  Apparently she could survive quite well on her own.  We tried to prove it, yet she wouldn't let us get to far into a proper sleep cycle.  It was about this point that I decided to start saving for singing lessons, because I am confident those lungs could support an opera.  Then it occurred to me that something wasn't right.  In fact, something had gone terribly wrong.

            The problem, you see, was that I can usually relate just about anything with something else.  My daughter however, could never in her life be related to fast food.  Odd that I try to do that, but at four in the morning after only getting thirty minutes of sleep in two days, you consider things like this.  The reason she is nothing like fast food is because when I pull through a drive-thru, I order my food, pay my dues, and everything comes to me in a nice packaged container.  The American system for delivering food has become so well packaged that you can probably eat your whole meal while driving to school at seventy miles an hour and never once look down to make sure you didn't grab a ketchup packet instead of a chicken strip.

My daughter is the exact opposite of that.  We didn't order an out-of-control-deafening-baby.  Just wasn't the combo meal we asked for.  We made our order, which was obviously mixed up, because we asked for a boy.  My wife picked up the dues which I can't ever admit to being disappointed about.  Finally we got our packaged little ball of pinkness.  They got the ten fingers, ten toes part right, but they forgot to keep her quite and stink free.  Ah so, here my wife and I find ourselves with one baby with super sized poop and a side of screaming.

Those first nights passed and we discovered that she is colic.  This struck me as odd, because I was supposed to be prepared and those damn books I read mentioned nothing of this.  Turns out that colic is just a fancy word for having a baby scream with nothing you can do.  Finally something I can relate to.  I told my wife welcome to the life of a dad. 

I didn't say this to her in terms that she should take care of our little girl and leave me to my Xbox.  I would have preferred her to assume that and let me go, but that just wasn't the case.  What I did mean when I told her that is this.  The sum collection of unforeseen events has been put into motion since the birth.  It was unforeseen that I would have absolutely no clue what I was doing with the baby, and probably still don't.  I read every baby book, highlighting and noting as I would for my anatomy class.  I made mental notes on parents while observing them in the shopping centers.  I had it all planned out.  Boy was I wrong.

If you're interested in why I was wrong, you'll wish you weren't shortly.  Now, I have been around the world a few times and seen my share of horrific things.  Nothing could prepare me for what I saw last night.  As I undid her clothes and stripped away the diaper, I stood in my bedroom the way a deer stands on a road.  Broadside and waiting to be hit.  My jaw dropped a little, but I could taste the stench, and closed it quickly.  Still frozen, my wife came in to save the day.  I'm not sure which book she read, but my books never gave descriptive information on whatever it was that looked like a smashed Babe Ruth candy bar with green tint, nor how to properly don and clear a gas mask after encountering one.  As a note from a guy, it was almost more impressive the capacity those diapers can manage.  If I was more influential, I would suggest cargo planes be made of the same material.

Turns out that my preparations, books, notes, and observations could be considered a waste.  I'm sure I've learned plenty from them, and they have enlightened my in a lot of different things I've never known before.  Just seems that it all went out the window the day she was born and I'm learning something new one day at a time.  Maybe life's a little better that way.  If we all had everything down by the time we had to do it, there would be no more challenges.  And without the challenge there wouldn't be anymore pride in our work.  I'm proud of my wife for taking care of herself, baby, and me with such high unrelenting standards.  I'm proud that my daughter has the strength and health to produce all the noise and stink in the world.  Somewhere deep down, I'm proud that I've managed to even be a part of the whole thing.  It turns out to be something unforeseen becomes is to be something special.  And that my friends, is why we will never allow ourselves to fully prepare for something.

Reviews

[Jamie Raintree]

First, I love your writing style and your voice is so personable. You had me laughing out loud! I love your take on fatherhood because I feel like we don't get the man's perspective nearly often enough. Your comedic take on it made it even better! Great piece!