Some days are easy. I can kick back with a frosty beverage and watch the Bills make a late third quarter comeback. Afterwards, I enjoy a celebratory nap until Bex puts dinner on the table.My favorite is when she makes a rack of beef ribs. If you’ve never had them, try them.
I didn’t even know they existed until Bex and I started dating. I promise you they make for one of the best dinner’s you’ve ever had. I feel just like Fred Flintstone digging into those things.
Other days… Who am I kidding? Most days are other days.
In these last few pre-baby weeks we’ve been going non-stop. On top of long days at work, I come home to stroller assembly, crib building, nursery decorating, and clothing sorting. This is all on top of the normal household chores. It’s exhausting…watching Bex do all of it. By the end of the night, I barely have the energy to finish those ribs, let alone dessert. She did remember to make dessert, right? Yeah, it’s right there in our empty fridge.
Readying our one bedroom apartment for this baby has really raised some soul searching questions for me. The first one being, why does a baby come with so many accessories? His day will pretty much consist of sleep, cry, eat, cry, take a crap, cry some more, and then after go around on my wife’s breasts, sleep it off before he starts the cycle all over again. Doesn’t seem like that requires a menagerie of stuffed animals he’s too small to even sleep with, a library of books he can’t read yet, and a six pack of bottles. I’ve stayed in four star hotels with less amenities.
Are we honestly expecting to bring the baby home from the hospital and be impressed
with all the hours we put into planning his arrival? I think not. If the baby could talk, I am sure he would look around at his new pad, pop the binky out of his mouth and say something like,
“And I thought my last place cramped, at least it had a water bed. What da hell is dat thing with the bars? Crib? Lemme tell ya Fat Man, it looks more like a prison.” I know this is our first child and all the veteran parents out there reading this are thinking “What’d he expect? The nursery fairy ain’t gonna flutter down and babyize the place for him.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m no fool. I knew there would be hard work involved. And I fully expected that hard work to be a thankless job. My gripe is with all the people who smile so sweetly at the grocery store and say,
“Get all the sleep you can now.”
Yeah, yeah, I get it. The kid will cry alot. It’ll be tough to get him on a regular sleep schedule. Bex and I will have bloodshot eyes for the first month. Just like the hard work, I expect all of that. But do these morons actually think that we have time to sleep now?
