My Qualifications and Holding Babies

Yesterday I talked about why I might not be ready to be a father.  Today I am going to make a case for why I AM ready to be a father.  Most people like to question themselves on why they might not be ready, especially when you are as close as my wife is to dropping a baby.  I say NAY!  Look, having a kid is going to be hard work and something that I have never done before, but it doesn't mean I won't be ready for what comes at me.

First of all, I have totally changed a diaper.  Back when my super awesome nephew, Ethan, was staying with us overnight, the wife gave me the task to change the simplest of diapers: The Pee Diaper.  I had no problem with this, as pee is totally not gross.  Unfortunately I hit a little snag in my effort to change said diaper.  Babies, particularly boys, when a diaper is taken off of them the cold air hits there little wee wees.  And when cold air hits little wee wees, they have a tendency to want to be warm again.  The second the diaper came off, that defense mechanism kicked in and he proceeded to pee all over me.  I have changed one diaper in my life, never before, and never since, and naturally the one time that I do I get the lemonade surprise.

Don't turn your back Uncle Mitch, I will totally pee on you!

Second of all, I totally took a home economics course in middle school for six weeks.  In that class we got to do things like sew (I made a cookie pillow!), cook (I made a cookie!) and took home a simulation baby doll to take care of (I didn't name her Cookie, that would be weird).  The baby doll would simulate what a real baby's tendencies were.  When the doll was hungry, it cried, and we would have to "feed" the baby.  It would wake you up at odd hours of the night, it would wake up and cry at school in the middle of classes.  It was quite the learning experience, even if I didn't take it too seriously.  The only weird part about the project was that when you fed the baby, instead of feeding the baby a bottle, you have to stick a key into the back of the baby and twist it until the baby was done "feeding".  It certainly made for awkward looks at restaurants and stores.

So as you can see, I am 100% qualified to be a dad.  I should have no problem being able to handle the daily grind of being a new dad.  That is until the first time I am with Zoey alone and calling my wife, mom or sister every five minutes wondering what to do.

As an aside to this.  Something came up over the weekend related to babies that I wanted to mention.  A couple of good friends of ours just had a baby on Christmas Day.  We saw them over the weekend and it was the baby's big coming out party to the rest of us.  Naturally my wife ended up holding the baby the most out of everyone.  She has the baby fever so it makes sense.  At one point my wife and the baby's mother asked if I wanted to hold the baby.  I immediately said NO WAY!  It has nothing to do with the baby or anything offensive like that.  My problem, and a problem that most non dads have is that we have no problem with the idea of holding a baby.  There is nothing wrong with it at all.  The problem we have is that we feel we WILL NOT be that person that drops their baby.  There is no way I will be that guy.  I know full well that I probably WON'T drop the baby.  But what if I was?  If I drop MY baby, sure I am a piece of crap, but it's MY baby.  So all these moms that get turned down by non dads take note, it's not you, its them!

Quote of the Day:

Me (to a friend that just became a dad): "How do you balance a baby and playing XBOX?"

Friend: You don't!

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