Ramblings of a New Dad: Half Dozen

In the span of three days my daughter turned six months old and I turned forty-five. Years. Forty-five years old. That can mean only one thing.

(That you’re ol—)

Shut it you.

(But it was like you were ask—)

Zip. It.

*sigh*

Yeah. Fine. It means that this guy has got himself a ticket on the one way train to Oldmanistan and she’ll be pullin’ into 62^nd station right about the time my offspring matriculates from high school. Of course, that assumes there will still be schools then. The way this current governmental administration is going, I could be having this conversation around the time she turns eighteen:

Offspring:       Dad, tell me one more time why we have to live in this bunker?

Me:                 *blink blink*

Offspring:       Never mind. I’ll just go to my cot and read 1984 again.

(You seriously need help.)

Preachin’ to the choir, my friend. Anywhoos… Yeah, this birthday kind of hit me. Thirty-five hit me hard because at that point I had not yet achieved my most desired life goal of having a family, and that sucked a box of rocks. And now here I am at forty-five, a decade later, and have everything I’ve ever wanted. But….well… shit. I ain’t getting any younger, am I?

Here’s the thing though: I don’t feel old. I really don’t. I’m in better shape than I’ve been in for a decade, and caring for an infant child certainly keeps me on my toes. The lack of sleep? You know I don’t sleep anyway. At least now when I’m awake in the middle of the night I can hold my daughter, smell her head, listen to her breath, and know that I helped bring this incredible little human into this world.

(Human?)

We think so. Ten fingers, ten toes, and all that. We’ll see if she grows wings or something when she hits puberty.

(Fair enough.)

I gotta be honest though… this whole parenting thing? Not that hard.

(BWAAAAHAAAAHAAAA….wait are you being serious?)

Completely. Does it take effort? Of course it does. Is it challenging? Undoubtedly. Will it test my patience, nerves, and anxiety? You betcha. But it’s not hard. Because she’s my daughter.

She’s my child. It’s what you do. You parent. You feed her and bathe her and comfort her and rock her and read to her and you change your schedule and you accommodate because you’re a parent and that’s what you do. And doing all that shouldn’t be hard. I will never understand those dads who don’t participate in child rearing or detach themselves or walk way and then forget to get their kid a haircut when it’s their weekend because WTF DUDES. This is your child. This tiny living breathing person is the sole reason for your existence. Put a little effort into it.

My fiancée went away for the weekend a couple weeks ago and I started to get pissed at the number of times people asked me how I was doing. As if I wasn’t capable of caring for this child whose life means more to me than my own for three days by myself. I was fine. Did fine. We did fine. We socialized, we snuggled. We did daddy and daughter things and it was awesome. Tiring, yes, admittedly, but awesome nonetheless.

And then the little stinker gave me pink eye.

(BWAAAAHAAAHAAAA okay we’re totally laughing at that one. Welcome to parenthood, bucko.)

I’ll give you that one. Hell, Jimmy Carter was president the last time I had pink eye. Oh, and then there was the cold. And bronchitis. So, moral of the story: Daycare is a swirling cesspool of viral calamity. And I found the culprit too. As I was picking her up the other day, I set the car seat on the ground to move her into it and another little girl came toddling over, smiled, then proceeded to grab the stuffed toy hanging on the side of the car seat and I swear to sweet bejeebus I thought this kid was gonna hack up half a lung on poor old Jacques the peacock.

Did I give stinkeye to a one year old? You’re goddamn right I did. Take that bubonic plague of yours elsewhere and stay away from my daughter. Ugh. How much longer do I have to deal with this?

(About eighteen years or so.)

Fiiiiiine. But we’re all getting healthy now, and I am adoring every second of watching this child grow and progress. We’re now starting solid foods. We figured we start off easy and try rice cereal for the very first time.

Do you know what rice cereal is to a baby? I’ll tell you.

Fucking rocket fuel.

(Wow, you actually typed out a swear word! You must be serio—)

FUCKING. ROCKET. FUEL.

If my child was the starship Enterprise she was going maximum warp sideways. I… seriously. No words. I am considering adding that stuff to MY diet just to see what happens.

(Just wait.)

 I know. I know! There’s so much more. And it’s all amazing. For example, she’s now making actual sounds, purposely, and the first sounds she’s making are “da” sounds. Now I know fully well she’s not articulating and associating the word “dada” with me just yet. Right I’m dada. The Dog is dada. That plant over there? Dada. I get it. Still. To hear the sound “dada” come off of my daughter’s lips in her tiny little voice?

*sigh*

Six months. Six glorious months. I can get used to this whole dad thing.

© 2018 J.J. Goodman. All rights reserved.