The work never ends.If I'm not bent over a washing machine, I'm bent over a dishwasher, a sink, a changing table or a Diaper Genie. Or I'm stringing a full basket of tiny clothes out on the line with my wife.
I thought this kid had more clothes than he'd ever need -- more even than his momma, which is saying something -- but he needs every stitch. We've gotten better about strapping his diaper down, but G-Man can soil some seriously large amounts of clothes in a short amount of time and take down countless blankets in the process.
Full of shit. Just like his daddy.
A few days ago, someone asked how my vacation was going.
Anyone who has it in his or her mind that taking time off work to take care of a newborn baby is a jolly holiday full of fun needs to stick his or her idea squarely in his or her ass. And you know what? It's way more work than one person can do alone.
It's fun, don't get me wrong. You see changes every day in the little guy. It's work, though. Serious, serious work.
I've decided to take the three months I'm due off to help my wife out, and I'm really interested in the way people react to that. Some folks are very supportive. Some are suprised. I've heard a lot of "I hear you took a whole year off," jokingly said, of course. But in some of those comments there's just a hint of bitterness, like I'm somehow slacking off or abusing the system.
Fact is, this may be my only shot at having a kid here, and I don't want to miss anything. I'm allowed to do it at my place of employment, and our families are hours away on both sides of the state. I certainly don't regret the decision to take 12 weeks off. Plus I've got sick time out the wahzoo because I never took my full vacation time for several years. We'll see if we feel the need for me to complete the full term, but I took it off just in case, and I see every indication that I'll be needed.
I know that back when, many dads left that sort of thing for the moms to do, and some dads may not have had then, or now, the time to chip in. It's a modern era, though, and childcare shouldn't be done just by one.So, I've decided to get in there and do it all just as good or better than anyone else. I got over my fear of holding a newborn hours after he was born because I had to do it. I had a friend in second grade who told me that if you touch a newborn baby's head and you accidentally hit the "soft spot," they'd turn into a drooling vegetable. So for all these years, I've shied away from anything to do with a newborn baby for fear of retardulating them beyond repair. Turns out that isn't the case. Not that I'm poking around on his skull to see what happens, don't get me wrong.
The diaper change so far isn't my favorite task, but it's remarkably easier than first imagined. And I love feeding time. This one can put it away in short order. I figure it's good bonding time for me and my son. Sometimes, I can actually doze off while he sucks away.
Plus, with the both my wife and I working together, everything goes a lot faster. In a way, it's helped to strengthen our bond as a couple, too. We're keeping the house clean together and taking turns or working together with his tasks. I think we're communicating better now, even through the mundane discussions of bowel movements and feeding amounts. Other things spring up in between and we're kind of like a united front.
I did a little reading in my "Crash Course for New Dads" book, which I'm liking so far, and it turns out a lot of the shit work got put on the momma at the turn of the industrial revolution. So the idea of women need to stay at home and do all the child rearing isn't really all that old of an idea. Before that, everyone worked in their cottages, hovels, barns, shanties and lean-tos, and childcare was a shared experience. So now, in the modern era, we're trying to get back to that shared responsibility.
So I decided to fly solo three nights ago. Just me, the boy and a closed bedroom door. Full-frontal parenting with no wife or mother-in-law to save me.
Both had taken a brutal beating for several nights. We've tried fruitlessly to get the G-Man to lay down in his bassinet at night because I am a strong believer in children sleeping separately from their parents. Well, G-Man doesn't care much for sleeping alone, and we get about 30 minutes of downtime before he sounds the alarm that his bassinet is bullshit.
The routine for the first several nights was we'd take him for the first half. After he'd well and truly kicked our asses, my mother-in-law would stay up watching crumby movies and watching him in the night shift so that my wife could get much-needed rest.
I had a role during this time, but I also got away with a bit more sleep. So, so to keep a fair balance, I decided that I would do this full night alone with my son so the ladies could get some much needed rest.
I'm a brave sonofabitch. It's true.
I locked G-Man and myself into the nursery and handled everything from feedings and diapers to yanking out crib mattresses and changing the whole mess and spending countless attempts trying to make the bedskirt go back the way it was the first time. If he started yowling, I'd grab him, pacify him and run down the hall to turn down the thermostat so the air-conditioner to muffle his screams. And I rocked. I rocked and swaddled and swaddled and rocked until my ankles were screaming in pain and the little guy finally, finally gave up and slept.
There were times I wanted to quit. There were times I almost went into the living room to hand him off to Nana. There were times, after dropping the pacifier on the ground for the 103,000th time, that I wanted to cuss and yell because I couldn't figure out why he didn't want to sleep and why he wouldn't stop fussing. There were times I did cuss because I stubbed my toe on furniture I couldn't see in the dark.
However, I stuck it out, and we made it. We both made it to 4:30, and we could both lay our burdens down. Momma had gotten eight hours of undisturbed sleep that she needed to heal and continue. He had beaten me, but I had beaten him back. And somehow, in the melee of wills, we had both won.How zen.
Mission accomplished.
