Syncing of You

I’ve heard that when women spend a lot of time living together that their cycles start to sync, but I never thought the same thing of men.

Until today.

My boy and I are spending so much time together that I suddenly realised, my god…

We’re on the same cycle!

We sleep, we eat…(and poop)…all on the same cycle. Put it down to routine, male bonding or effective time management, but there in lies the dilemma of needing desperately to go at the exact same time you’re changing your son’s nappy. It’s either you or me kid…one of us has to go (though, technically both of us).

So, what’s a dad to do?

Abandon the lad and leap for the latrine, possibly scarring him for life with issues of abandonment and leaving him sprawled on the change table in his own juices, like a half-stuffed turkey at Christmas?

Or grab hold of the change table and drag it with you like a scene from Platoon, dragging fallen comrades to the chopper (leave no man behind), as you back your way into the bathroom to conduct your business?

Or bite down on a block of wood with crossed legs, your body twisting like a pretzel, squinting through tears as you race to address your son’s needs, before rupturing internally or exploding like a frog in a microwave?

It used to be easier when he was younger, but now that he’s commando crawling quicker than Jeff Thompson avoiding A Current Affair cameras, I can’t just pop him on the floor and leave him unattended (there’s never a Matthew Newton available to lie on the floor with him, when you need one). And if he needs changing the same time as you’re “going”, there’s always the risk of him spreading a trail through the house that requires an urgent call to Drytron to shampoo the carpets.

So, short of matching “His” and “His” adult and child diapers, or a tandem toilet bowl built for two, I guess I have to just grin and bare it. Unless there’s a way to unsync our cycles? Anyone out there have Justin Timberlake on speed dial? I need to know how he broke up NSYNC.

Show No Fear

Your job as a dad, is similar to that of a UFC Cage Fighter, Roman Gladiator, Lion Tamer and/or…being attacked by a grizzly bear!!!

Your main objective…

Show No Fear!

Wait…that last one, you’re supposed to lay down on the ground and pretend to be dead, right?
(same diff) 😉

So, when you’re sitting in the doctor’s waiting room waiting to go in for Indy’s 4 month immunisation shots and your wife asks you if you’re nervous…show no fear (see lie, lie, lie) or…lay down on the waiting room floor and pretend to be dead (see geezuz, how old are you? Get off the floor, you’re embarrassing us!).

Sitting in that room looking into those big, sparkling, trusting blue eyes, nonchalantly chewing on those playful little fingers, innocently drooling, completely ignorant of the horrors that await on the other side of that door…I can hardly stand it. I can’t be responsible for lulling him into a false sense of security, then watch his world unravel as he tears my throat apart, choking me to death (ala Homer Simpson style), “Why you little…”

I take a deep breath, puff out my chest, reassure my wife that “Sure, he’ll be fine”, then…collapse like a crying school girl and confess everything like a mafia stooge with a gun to his head.

“When we go in, there’s a doctor in there who’ll give you two needles. There will be some stinging, but it’s only temporary, and mummy and daddy will be there to look after you, so everything will be okay.”

And he looks at me like he understands what I’m saying…or pooping, (I go with the former). And so, with nerves of tin foil, we grit our teeth and head on in.

And we had a great time, go figure? Not only, did he only cry for about 3 seconds with each shot, but he was also cracking jokes and making our doctor giggle his guts out. At this stage, our boy’s more the physical humour type, and was sucking the medicine out of the tube so quickly before the doc could hardly hold onto it, and making all kinds of crazy faces, the doc was actually giggling and laughing so much, he could hardly look Indy in the face and do his job at the same time.

Which only goes to show, when it comes to showing no fear, our lad has that in spades. And when I grow up, I only wish daddy has the same amount of courage as he does.

Stick It To The Man

OMG! Has it been six weeks already?

My, how time does fly. Where’s a Delorean when you need one?

And just as Doc Brown from Back To The Future said, “Once this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious shit,”. So it is for us, that our baby has hit 6 weeks (see 88m/hr), and the serious shit (see ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch), is of course…

Immunization

How can one little prick cause so much upset? (See Adolf Hitler, Obama Bin Laden, Colton from Survivor)

Or, so we thought…

Mums definitely have two distinct calming advantages when it comes to soothing away your troubles…

“They’re called boobs, Ed.” – Erin Brockovich

Boobs are an incredibly effective means of numbing any pain a man (big or little), might have. You can see it instantly, the very moment he snuggles in, latches on and suddenly…

Num…num…num…

Pain and Upset…GONE! — That’s a double-act nobody wants to see anyway, like Lara Bingle and The Shire….(though equally, just as painful).

So, our little man took it pretty well. That sudden look of, “No, you di’int…WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!” Followed by the red-faced silent breath of air that sucks into his lungs, right before the air-raid siren rips…stifled by the num-num-numbness of that “happy place”.

BTW: Don’t think for one second that Daddy didn’t miss the fact that mummy wanted him to hold Indy so that any pain he might experience would be associated with HIM and not HER at all. Daddy’s cluey about that sort of thing.

But that means I can now rest a little easier knowing our little one is protected from some of the hidden (microscopic) dangers of the world. So, at least he has a better chance of becoming a happy and healthy little boy and not end up an extra in The Walking Dead.

Be strong…(I’m talking to you, Daddy)

School is…IN

Schnitzel hits the big 3-0!

30 Weeks and doing well.

And for us, it means…school is in! (New for me, but old news for my lovely wife…she is a school teacher after all).

But this is school…with a difference. The kind of school that’s mandatory to watch videos of naked women, where sleeping in class is encouraged (why else would they ask you to bring in two pillows?) and instead of a diploma, you get a placenta. That’s right, I’m talking about…

Child Birthing Classes!

Or…“How to scare the living sh*t out of yourself, without really trying”.

This is the business end of the stick folks. Here’s my down-on-all-fours, nitty gritty, Top 10 ways to scare you and your partner into thinking, “what the hell have we got ourselves into?”

#10 – Epidurals: A javelin jammed in your spine to make the badman (pain), go away.

#9 – Six different massage positions designed to help ease pain and discomfort during the 2nd stage of labour (and coincidentally, the very same positions that got us into this situation in the first place).

#8 – Describing birthing pain as…indescribable. (Oh goody, put me down for two, then).

#7 – The birthing room is, “no place for jokes”. (Come on, you’re killin’ me, here!).

#6 – “Because you run the risk of inverting the woman’s uterus.” – The response to my question, “why does the woman have to give birth to the placenta? It’s got a chord, right? Can’t they just yank it out?” – See #7

#5 – If you bring your iPhone into the delivery room filled with Contraction Apps, “we’ll throw it in the toilet!”

#4 – Wolfmother is not considered appropriate “birthing music”.

#3 – Nobody knows what baby Gorillas are called…(guess you had to be there).

#2 – Lying down on the bed is one of the worst ways to give birth…(thank you Hollywood movies!).

#1 – Everything you learn today may or may not be applicable on the day…WHAAAT??

So now, I feel much better. Can’t hardly wait for next week’s class.

(Did anyone else feel that shiver?)