Improvising Fatherhood

a blog about the comedy of being a dad

Music Class 2: Shake, rattle, and that's how I roll.

Today the whole family went back to the Lake Oswego Public Library music class. In a previous article I wrote about my experience taking Chandler to this class on my own. This time all of us went together.

We were a little late and missed out on some of the opening songs. That didn’t phase us though, because today’ trip wasn’t about the music. Today we were there to show off Chandler’s crawling skills.

Chandler has really got this crawling thing down, and he’s already trying to leave that mode of transportation behind as he attempts to stand and walk. So today as we snuck in to the class and found a spot in the “happy circle” we didn’t waste anytime. I put Chandler right on all fours and released him into the wild.

I think Chandler could tell it was time to perform. He put on a dazzling display of crawling, sitting up, switching back and forth from the crawl and sitting positions, and even threw in a few face plants as comic relief.

And the crowd went wild!

We got a ton of comments like, “How old is your baby? Only 5 months! This guy is 7 months and he’s nowhere near crawling yet,” and “Wow, he’s really advanced!”

I’d be lying if I said Ashley and I weren’t LOVING it. I wrote in a previous article about how I hate when parents talk about how great their own kids are. So Ashley and I have made a conscious effort not to talk him up too much. We just let his actions do the talking. And as people are fawning over how amazing he is we will often deflect the praise by saying something like, “Well he’s still not sleeping through the night.”

Of course, being the doting parents that we are, we can’t help but want to promote our child a little bit. Ashley has joined the BabyCenter.com forums and we are actively sharing our son’s achievements. We still avoid any “our son is so special” type comments, and instead we upload videos of him in action and simply say, “He does this now. Is that good or something?”

It’s pretty obvious what we’re doing. We’re bragging. But at least we’re backing it up with solid evidence. Another mom posted that her baby was the cutest baby ever. But she didn’t post any pictures. This of course sent the forums into a tizzy as a slew of other moms posted pictures of their babies and declared their child the victor. While Ashley and I agree that Chandler can probably take all of those kids in a cute-off, Ashley went a different route and replied that ours was the most athletic baby ever. And we provided video proof. The decision was unanimous. Chandler wins.

Oh, and that comment about Chandler not sleeping through the night? Well he slept for 5 hours straight last night. So that will soon be a thing of the past.

BEST BABY EVER!!!!!!

posted 2 days ago