If you consider that my Thanksgiving blog is a bit out of order and bears little in common with my first Husbandry blog about the beginning of life, then the following thoughts fit more naturally with the first blog and bear the consequence of my actions leading to fatherhood. And again, I welcome your thoughts and criticisms of my writing which I may use to improve my blog or move them to the rubbish bin depending on my mood or state of mind. So, okay then. Here are some more thoughts on the art of husbandry.
Birthing and Parenting
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.” – Hans Christian Anderson
And then the night and day of delivery. Some people call it the miracle of birth as if it is a calm, beatific, beautiful event. What drugs did they get that I Linda and I didn’t? I still have bite marks on my hand where Linda bit me. I was in agony. Her screaming didn’t help matters. Endless hours of labor pains eventually led to an emergency “C” Section. At the end, the doctor grabbed my son by the ankles, held him upside down and whacked him on the back. He was covered with gooey mucous and he was blue and had a cone head. The doctor’s comment was, “he’s a slippery little rascal.” And I was afraid he was going to drop him on his head.
I thought, “Shit, Linda’s been cheating on me with a Martian.” That can’t be my kid. Holy crap, is he breathing? And finally, the cry. This was a cry we would become so very familiar with. Nothing could console this child.
“Honey, wake up; the baby’s crying.” “Well go get him.” “Ok, here he is.” “Go rock him back to sleep.” “Maybe he’s hungry.” “Sorry, this dairy is closed until morning.” Rocking never helped. Walking helped. Stopping walking didn’t help. Laying him back in his crib when I couldn’t walk anymore only caused him to re-awake and start crying again. Where the hell is the manual for this baby?
You buy a lawnmower, you get a manual. You buy a BBQ, you get a manual. Almost everything comes with a manual. I paid more for a baby than I paid for a car and I don’t get a manual.
CHAPTER 3
Baby Manual
Page 1 – Hiring a nanny. What? You didn’t save enough to hire a nanny? Go to Page 2 – How to calm a crying baby.
Page 3 – How to calm a wife.
Page 4 – Why alcohol is not a solution.
Page 5 – How to fold a diaper.
Page 6 – How to avoid sticking diaper pin in baby. (This page might possibly date me.)
Page 7 – How to stay awake at work.
Page 8 – Why paid parental leave should be mandatory and include a one month all expense paid trip to a golf resort during the second month following the birth of a child.
Two and one half years later, the human brain has no recollection of the trauma of birth and the first six months of child rearing. Life is all chaos all the time and seems normal. So, when Linda says, “Guess what? I’m pregnant.”, I don’t even flinch. I think I say, “congratulations.” As if she just won an award for being mom of the year.
Devlin, Huberty and Helm. Linda’s new obstetricians. With baby #1, the family doctor was to deliver-the baby. Except that he went on vacation and his almost English-speaking replacement delivered our son. Linda didn’t like the way that delivery went so she switched to the three docs. Each of them saw Linda and each were prepared for the scheduled delivery since the C-section was a scheduled thing. Except that Baby #2’s schedule was two weeks different than the docs.
“Rich, I’m having labor pains.” “Relax, you’re not due for two weeks. They’ll probably go away.” “Rich, the labor pains are only 5 minutes apart. We need to leave for the hospital now!” I’m thinking to myself, “don’t argue with your wife, even though we’ll probably get there, turn around and come home.” It’s around midnight and I’m sleepy. I don’t want to drive all the way to Pullman, drop our son off at Linda’s sister’s house only to find out that this is some sort of false labor. But I’m a husband and I do what my wife says; especially at this stage of pregnancy. I call Linda’s sister to tell her we are on our way and then I call the doc’s emergency number to let him know they missed the estimated birth by a little bit and to please meet us at the hospital.
We arrive at the hospital, Linda is wheeled off to a room to wait until it is time for surgery, Dr. Devlin arrives and takes me by the arm and says it is time to scrub, and into the restroom we go to don our hospital scrubs and wash our hands and arms. Then Dr. “D” reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a flask and says, “here, have some brandy.” I take the flask, drink a shot and off we go to surgery. I’m starting to like Dr. Devlin and wished I had brought him a cigar.
Baby #2 was much less dramatic. Her birth was easier. She had the sweetest, most pathetic little cry. She was adorable.
Husbandry 