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.