Thursday, August 25, 2011

Top 10 Things I Never Thought I’d Do Until I Had a Baby

Jack’s first birthday is just a few days away, so I figured I’d take a bit of stock into what I thought I’d never do if/when I had kids that are now everyday occurrences.  And, just for fun, let’s do it David Letterman-style, counting backwards.  You know, Letterman--he’s what all us cool kids watched at Midnight when I was in college…now I’m lucky to make it past 9:15 watching DVR’d Daily Shows without falling asleep on the couch. 

Hmmm….this has me wondering: what are all the cool kids in college watching at midnight nowadays, anyway?  Let’s go check over on Google and see what’s hot … OK, here it is, according to collegehumor.com, it looks like the college kids today like to watch other kids slap each other in the face with pizza. 


I’m so old.

Well, obviously, that quadruple shot of espresso I just had after I put Jack down for his afternoon nap is kicking in.  So, let’s get going.  Here is the top 10 list of things I never thought I’d do until I had a baby:

10. Direct 95% of the conversation to be about the baby. Some examples include: “you should have seen what Jack did today, it was so cute.”; “This guacamole is good.  Speaking of which, did you know that Jack’s favorite food is avocado?”; “When taking the derivative of the xth integer, using a Taylor- series expansion, we can most inevitably see that Jack’s ability to walk has increased to the ¾ power over the past 4 days, supporting the general theory of network allometry.”

9. Use my saliva to clean off the baby’s face. Yes, I know, this is an old stand-by, especially for moms, but seriously, it’s kinda nasty when you really think about it.

8. Talk about the baby every chance I get.  Wait, did I already use this one?  I like to talk about the baby.  Guess what he was doing this morning while we were at the post-office…Oh, whoops, sorry, I’ll move on.

7. Be excited when I get to hold another baby.  I think I can count the number of babies on one hand that I held before we had Jack.  And, all I can remember was being terrified and wanting to hand it back over asap.  Now I love holding babies…even the ugly ones!

6. Feel well-rested when I get more than 6 hours of sleep at night.  Did I ever mention that Jack is a terrible sleeper?

5. Have no qualms about rubbing anti-fungal cream and lotion onto someone else’s penis on a daily basis.  Yeah, ‘nough said.

4. Experience depths of unconditional love that grow exponentially every day.  If you think that’s sappy, check out one of my first posts on this blog from a few weeks ago.

3.  Stick my hand inside a diaper to see if there was poop.  Yes, gross…but, in fact, I just did while putting Jack down for a nap a little while ago.  You see, we just got back from running errands, and he was wiped out.  I didn’t want to have to change him and get him all riled up unless he pooped.  And, he was laying there half-asleep, so, well… You know, let’s just forget that I told you about this one. 

2. Have no jealously whatsoever by all of the attention another male is giving to my wife’s breasts.


And, the number one thing I thought I’d never do until I had a baby is…..


1. Be-out-of-work—the career I’ve worked incessantly in for 20 years—but wake up every day feeling lucky to be able to spend the whole day with my wonderful son and excited to blog to the world (or at least about 20-30 of you) about how awesome he is.

2 comments:

  1. I do the finger in the nappy thing too to check for pooh. I also used to do that thing where you lift up baby in public and just sniff his bottom.
    Mind you I am a classy lady...

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  2. Thanks for the comment! Yes, we used to try the bottom-sniffing technique. But, Jack has some of the funkiest smelling pee you've ever smelled, and sometimes it's difficult to discern #1 vs. #2!

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