Improvising Fatherhood

a blog about the comedy of being a daddy

About Drool

One of the things I have been most excited about in terms of being a father is watching my son progress as he gains and develops new skills. The first ten weeks didn’t have a lot of this. Chandler was barely aware that his hands existed or even attached to him let alone that he could control them and use them to hold things.

But in week 11 a lot is changing and Chandler is starting to figure some things out. This is very exciting and I’ll talk about this more in another post. However, Chandler is not the only person who is making progress.

Before Chandler was born I was not the kind of person who dealt well with drool. I couldn’t even stand to touch my own drool. My wife is constantly chastising me for my excessive use of napkins during a meal.

I don’t know if this is an official phobia, but I had what you might call a fear of mystery liquids. If I felt even the slightest bit of moisture and I wasn’t 100% sure of what it was I’d go into a mini panic attack which would lead to excessive hand washing, changing of any affected clothes, and quite possibly a shower.

I think this irrational fear stemmed from the fact that I was a bed wetter for most of my childhood. Yes, it’s true. I used to wet the bed. Growing up, I was so accustomed to waking up soaked in my own pee that when I went to public bathrooms the smell of urine made me feel right at home. When I woke up my bed was so wet I needed to wear water wings to make sure I was safe.

That’s enough of that. Needless to say, that experience has made me very suspicious of any unkown liquids. And now I’m a father of an 11 week old son. I live in a world of unkown liquids. In the first few days that my little bundle of fluids was alive I was never outside of arms reach of a burp cloth. Every little droplet I felt was immediately mopped up. Every time I came in contact with drool was followed soon after with a diligent hand washing.

11 weeks later things are a little different now. Not only have I become completely comfortable wiping Chandler’s drool right off his face with my bare hands, I’m pretty sure I could lick it off his face if I needed to.

11 weeks ago the idea of doing this would have sickened me. But now I am impressed with the progress I have made. I don’t know that this is a skill I can use anywhere else other than as a father (maybe being the manager for a rock star) but I’m proud of my new found abilities nonetheless. Who knows what other amazing skills I’ll pick up along the way. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

posted 1 week ago

Roughing It

I had a pretty rough week. I spent most of it in the wilderness. By wilderness I don’t mean I was sleeping under the stars or setting up camp in the woods. I was in a perfectly nice house with running water and fully functioning AC and heat. But this house just so happened to be located in the quaint little village of Elsah, IL. And Elsah is an Internet and cellular DEAD ZONE.

I got off the plane and was greeted by my parents. They were so excited to see my 11 week old baby. I was so excited to check my email and Twitter on my iPhone after two hours of mile high exile. We drove towards their house and as I caught up on my facebook news feed I watched my reception drop off.

And then it was gone. “No big deal, I’ll just use wifi at my parents place,” I thought. We arrive at their house and Ashley gets the baby settled in as I set up our mobile electronics command center. iPhones are charging and the MacBook is ready to connect.

No wifi. Okay, I’ll just use the Internet on my parents’ computer.

No computer.

No Internet?

The adventure was about to begin. I remember hearing about the book Swiss Family Robinson, and watching ABC’s hit show LOST, where ordinary people were forced to live like cavemen and fend for themselves in the wild. And now I was living it. What was I going to do? I had a child to care for. Well…my wife had a child to care for…and if she’s taking care of him, who’s taking care of me?

I hunkered down and mentally prepared myself for the week ahead. I was going to have to find other ways to entertain myself. And then I heard it. A small baby-like sound. It was coming from…my baby. Holy cow! I have a child! A son even! And he does stuff!

Playing with Chandler is similar to playing a new game on my iPhone. At first it can be hard to figure out the controls, and I really want to make sure I don’t drop him. While Chandler seems to be impervious to liquid damage, his battery life is no where near as long as the iPhone.

Nevertheless this week was really fun. Every morning we woke up with Chandler and he had breakfast in bed (thanks Mommy!) and then playtime. There were so many priceless moments. I have never seen Chandler smile as much as I did this week. We even heard a legitimate giggle from him.

Chandler did so many cute things and at first every time he did something I’d reach for my iPhone so I could tweet to the world what he had done. Each time I was reminded that I was disconnected from society and the only people I could send status updates to were sitting in the room with me.

“Chandler just smiled! Would you like to comment or say that you liked my post?”

Now we are on our way home. Back into the warm embrace of the Internet. And while I can’t wait to reconnect with all of my facebook friends (most of whom I’ve never met), I want to make sure I continue to stay plugged in to the people who are right next to me.

Hopefully there’s an app for that.

posted 2 weeks ago