A Guide to Parenting

Here are a few things that they don't tell you going into this whole parenthood thing (in no particular order):

You will never sleep again--Sounds like a cliche, but it's not a joke. Contrary to popular belief, new babies actually sleep a lot. They just don't sleep continuously--five minutes here, twenty minutes there. Don't even buy into the false sense of hope that you'll take cat naps along with them. Your life will become one big Disney show. Disney closes at a certain time, but it never stops. After all the water shows and fireworks, someone is there cleaning up and resetting everything for the next day. That's you buddy. As soon as my daughter went to sleep, I was back in the kitchen washing bottles, washing clothes, cooking my own food and taking a shower. She's seven months old and sleeps throughout the night but I don't. As soon as she falls asleep I find myself trying to cram a day of adulthood into a few hours of the night. I'm reading, clearing my Tivo queue, cleaning up and washing clothes.

You will eventually drop (something on) the baby-- You will do your damnedest to prevent any harm from befalling the little bugger. You'll take a blood oath, pray, learn krav maga, buy a gun and do anything else that pops into your head to keep your child safe from himself and others and then you'll turn around become the threat. I've dropped the camera into the bassinet barely missing my daughter's head and I've also fallen asleep (see the above point) on the couch and caught her just as my kung fu grip wore off and she started rolling toward the floor. We went over 100 days without incident and then one day she decided that she would take her first stab at crawling while on the couch. I moved faster than I ever have in my life. It was like the Matrix with cars and all kinds of debris from the house following behind me as I flew with lightning in my black trenchcoat and designer shades towards my plummeting three month old except this time Neo didn't make it. I caught her little foot just a nanosecond after her body hit the floor. I'm not the one after all.

Women will love you (if you're a guy)-- I've written about this before. The baby serves as a sign of adequate competence. If you're a man and you have your kid with you and her clothes match, you actually thought enough to bring a diaper bag and the baby is bundled up for the weather, you might as well be wearing a crown and carrying a scepter. Women will worship you. You're the man who has common sense. You, big guy, are caring and responsible and a good father/provider and whatever else that particular woman hasn't been able to find in a man yet still clings to hope and finds it in the most absurd places. They will approach you. You will feel good about yourself and your significant other will pick up on it make it her point to undo all of that because you're her property now and she's worked too damned hard to groom you into what she wants.

Your child will not play with anything that costs more than $20--Save your money. You can buy swings that play 5 different sounds including one that simulates the heartbeat heard in the womb. Go ahead and shell out money for that educational toy that lights up and teaches them words before they're able to walk. Buy whatever the people in Buy Buy Baby and Babies R Us convince you will make your kid smart and I guarantee you'll be on Ebay, Craigslist and Amazon a month later trying to see what you can get for it when you sell it. Ironically, they will play with an empty soda bottle, the box that the diapers came in, or a crumpled up piece of paper. My daughter actually knocked her $50 Activity Desk over so that she could get to the 25 cent plastic ring that we got at the dollar store.

One parent will be the sucker--My daughter plays my wife like a good hand of spades. She has two cries. One is for me and one is for my wife. She understands that crying is a limited resource with me. She better only use it for life threatening things like fire or nuclear attack. On certain occasions she can whimper to let me know that she wants something to eat. Other than that, we operate on the facial expression system. It's silent and most importantly, it's effective. With my wife, crying is the only language my daughter knows. The sun set? Time to cry. Happy to see mommy? Time to cry. My wife enables her by feeding into it and then looks at me like I'm a jerk when I walk out of the room.

To be continued...