The lady who opened the door to greet us hadn’t washed her hair this calendar year. I thought immediately that she had given up bathing for her New Year’s resolution. Pausing for a moment, I decided to attempt to honor my resolution (made each year for the past twenty-three) and try to see the world positively. Perhaps her hair looked so vulgar because she had been advised that olive oil was a great way to treat dandruff. She appeared determined to solve that problem …
Category: Blog Posts
Sunday was a big day for my wife and me; after three months of jealously protecting our son, we finally took him into the world of strangers. Born six and one-half weeks premature, and in the heart of cold and flu season, we were continuously reminded by doctors not to take him around strangers for fear that his tiny immune system wouldn’t be able to handle the onslaught of germs with which he was sure to be inundated. We had …
American men are increasingly, and happily, taking on a more equal share of child raising responsibilities (the massive female martyr complex, along with elephant-like memories that allow them to recall–in detail–every moment of the breast-feeding process, will never allow us to claim equality in child rearing). However, we seem to get as much credit for our efforts as if we, instead, spend all of our time on the golf course yelling “fore!” and taking whiskey shots off the baby powdered bosoms …
I’m sure the question of what the parenting world would look like if it was controlled by straight men has been addressed many times in many forums–most of the seating at those forums being on bar stools. That won’t, however, stop me from offering my views on the subject. Before I start, I’d like to lay out one simple ground rule: mothers are still involved with child-rearing in my hypothetical world, they are just reduced to a subservient role, just …
Most parents imagine great things for their infants; future world leader, future Nobel Prize winning scientist, future Olympic bronze-medal winning trampoline “athlete.” Perhaps the two months that I’ve been on lock down with my son has caused me to be a bit touched, but my dreams for him are more pedestrian and much more immediate. In my mind he is already dominating the infant stand-up circuit with material such as this. A lot of times I wake up in the middle …
The following is a list of Facebook status’ that my eight-week-old son would post if he had sorted out that typing thing. …
I was recently attempting to change my son’s diaper while his arms and legs were flailing at the air as fast as he could make them go–he was seemingly trying to crawl through the air to escape the experience (why would an infant prefer caked dung on his bottom to a clean diaper?). Then, like any parent of more than one day, I immediately plopped a pacifier in his mouth, rendering the child as pliant as a cult member’s mind. This …
A baby’s weight is expected to double between birth and five months. My powerhouse eating preemie is on pace to accomplish this in about two months. The medical professionals might say it has something to do with his special high-calorie formula, but in my arrogance, I’d like to think it’s really due to his exceptional eating and evacuation habits, as well as my wife’s and my ability to read his cues. How We Know When Our Boy Wants a Bottle in His Gob How …
My child recently turned five weeks-old and was born six-weeks premature. Despite these statistics, I’m rather sure that I can already detect a preternatural intellect. His genius is most on display when he is in the process of defecation. The medical professionals will tell you that the wry smile or wide grin is a natural reaction to gas, but I know that he is barely containing his mirth at his own thoughts. Here is a sampling of some of those thoughts: …
I used this space previously to document my unfamiliarity with nursery rhymes and my compensatory creations. I recently decided that I needed to do some research and teaching so my kid wouldn’t be mocked by his daycare colleagues when he turned up singing of monkeys eating fruit with a kid called Seamus. When I started the arduous task of Googling “nursery rhymes,” I assumed that my amateur lyrics were shameful in comparison to the sweet words that have lulled children to sleep for centuries. I …
