Pregnancy, Delivery, Fatherhood

Quite a few folks have been checking back asking about Jdid jr. All is well, he's settling in and its only been two weeks so there isn't that much to report unless I become all gushy about his raising his head, or staring at us or losing his umbilical cord or something of the sort but that's not my style.

However I do have a few short thoughts on the whole thing, from pregnancy until present so I'll try to share them in a few small to the point paragraphs (yea like I can actually do short paragraphs).

- Baby class Part 1 - The wife took me to some pre-natal classes to get up-to-date with things since I man was/am generally clueless. I mean originally I thought baby class was a class to teach you baby talk so you could communicate with the chile. You know like goo goo ga ga translates to "I'm hungry" and ga ga goo goo means "I'm wet change me nuh man" and goo goo goo ga goo goo means "ya ugly man, you aint my real daddy". Of course a chupse is still a chupse.

- Baby Classes Part II - If I have to hear the word placenta one more time and its not Biggie singing "The What" someone is getting hurt.................

- Baby class Part III - The birthing films they show are extremely graphic. Mind you before showing them they told us it was not as graphic as the stuff on the Learning Channel. They so lied! After the first one the teacher had to look at the wife and say 'Where is your husband and who is this white man sitting in his seat" . True true, that was how pale I was after watching the film. nuh lie!

- Prior to the baby's arrival I was sporting a beard. A family member saw me the Thursday prior to the baby's arrival and told me to shave cause I frightening the baby from coming. True to form Sunday morning I shaved and he was here Sunday night. If I had known this would have happened I would have held out to see who would blink first. I wouldn't have shaved all like now and I'm willing to bet he'd have to arrive before I cut my beard.

- For all the things we were prepared for and techniques and maneuvers and the like things were thankfully relatively simple (Amen!) and we (hear me like I do something) the wife had a pretty easy delivery. With that said I just wanted it in writing that the yoga preparation class she dragged me to wins the award hands down for biggest waste of a Friday night that could have been spent liming with the boys.

- True to form the wife interrupt my plans for the NBA all star game by having the baby that day. Gee some women will do anything for attention aint it. Well at least I didn't ignore her till the game was finished. "Contractions, chupse woman ya best behave yaself till Lebron win this game!"

- On the way to the hospital, actually just outside the hospital there is sign for some fund raising campaign they are having. The sign says "Bigger, Better, Faster". Hear me now in the car to the wife "hmmm bigger, better faster. Well let that too be your motto". The other folk thought it was funny. Mind you I don't think she heard me with all the pain she was in...although I believe subconsciously it helped. Way to go, must be the first time the wife ever listen to me.

- After the birthing films mentioned above I had no intention of being anywhere in the nether region when the baby arrived. Oh hell no I man was staying at the head. I didn't bring my smelling salts and I wasn't looking to faint and embarrass myself. However I must say that's not what happened and I was actually there holding hands, legs and assisting with breathing, telling lies through my teeth to the wife to get her to push "one more push girl, one more it almost finish", and watched the whole thing from start to finish. Pretty interesting actually and no way near as disturbing as watching the films.

- I even got to cut the umbilical cord. Damn those things are huge, I always imagined something thin and string like, its big like a rope used for tying out cattle.

- The wife is being hailed up as some sort of modern day superwoman. First child, no C-Section, no epidural, short labour, all natural baby. Everytime the story is relayed to some other female I can see this mixture of respect and amazement in their eyes. Its as if she saved people from a burning building or something. She's reaching iconic status. I wouldn't be surprised if some women out there are nominating her for sainthood or the mayor appear at my door with the keys to the city the way this story is going. All I have to say though is she should be giving me a lot of props cause if she did marry a fella wid a big head she would be singing a different story all like now.

- Baby furniture. Either they give you way too much info, or way too little. Its either hold rod in hand, place rod through slot b, (turn page) hold nut in other hand, attach nut to rod which could all be done in one line rather than 5 diagrams. Thats the too much info case the opposite is when they give you these illegible diagrams with more arrows than an NFL playbook.

- Babies. Is it just me or are babies like the most environmentally unfriendly people out there or what? I mean lets examine this whole eat, crap, sleep thing. Well lets just examine the crap part. You've got your choices, disposable or reusable diapers. Disposable you are just adding ridiculous amount of stuff to the compost or landfill. Reusable you are continually washing, using up our precious water resources or adding phosphates to the environment. Its a no win situation. I propose a disposable diaper made of mulch and grass which you can just throw in your backyard as fertilizer for the lawn. Mind you the lawn will probably smell like a landfill in a couple of days and the neighbors will not be pleased but you're sure to have the greenest lawn on the block by the time the child is 3 months old. What? I'm just trying to look out for my fellow man in these environmentally serious times.

- I now have a new vocabulary of baby related items like "onesies", "stomach time", and "swaddle". Aye Carumba!

- Vaseline is now my new best friend. Seriously I does got this child greasier than a piece of KFC.

- Damn how did two black people get a chile so light skinned eh? All the wife telling me is he look like me and he only so light cause he "strike back". I aint know what she talking about cause the only strike back I know is Empire Strikes back and I hope she aint trying to tell me Darth Vader is he father. Anyways watch for me on Maury coming next month. Just kidding apparently I was a very light baby at birth too.

- So far he's not been overly disruptive to my sleep (except last night when I woke up at 2 and didn't get back to sleep till around 6.

- Baby car seats. The come in different weight ranges and with the laws being that under a certain weight kids must mandatorily be in a car seat or booster chair it means over the course of the first couple years of the baby's life you have to buy about 20 of those things. Nice scam!

- Maybe I mentioned this before but everyone has baby advice. Note to everyone Jdid isn't big on advice. Not that I feel I know everything (I know nothing for the record) and wont listen, its just kind of weird getting advice from folks who previously have said like 2 words to you ever.

- The baby hasn't chupsed yet. I think he read the last blog and decided that it wasn't in his best interest to do that outside of the womb.

- Sorry no baby photos on the blog. The way I see it I really aint the type who feels comfortable with my own picture on the net so why put up the baby's. Plus a lot of crazy photo crap been happening lately too so yea sorry but I can describe him to you: He red, he getting fat and he has a big heap of curly hair on his head.

- Friends and family keep bringing gifts which is great but some of the gifts are "brand name" clothing. Looka wunnah setting a dangerous precedent for the yout cause I aint buying he no brand name clothing. Not that I didn't have brand name clothing when I was growing up cause as a yout I used ta rock GITAMUH like there was no tomorrow. Wait ya never hear bout GITAMUH? Yo that's was one of the roughest brands out there. I'm sure some of y'all must remember it. Like when cousin Leroy last chile outgrow he clothes and them get gi-ta-muh (give to (me) muh). Y'all understand now? I talking about hand me downs. Oh gosh man like wunnah aint gettin the joke yet.

- I have given up diaper changing for lent. How ya mean if I can do that. And why not? They say give up something for lent, why it cant be diaper changing? The wife say no but who is she to get between me and my religion. I firing the diaper thing for lent, the baby could either hold it in or he could change them himself.

- Random thought. are babies in nudist colonies allowed to wear diapers? hmmm

thursday morning addendum: You've heard of symathetic pregnancies where dudes get morning sickness or grow breasts when their significant others are pregnant well the first few days after the baby came home I had symathetic baby eating syndrome. Everytime the yout start eating I was rushing to the pantry for some sort of snack or meal. Go figure.