Being A Dad

In the next 2-3 months I am going to be a dad. It seems like a normal sentence, one which could have been written by any of several billion people over human history. Yet as every expectant father knows, there is nothing in all that shared experience and knowledge that helps you feel even a little bit more capable or prepared for the task.

I have often “joked” here that we won't be doing the whole crying thing – I will have a chat. I will explain acceptable behaviour. Tantrums? No. That will not happen. This will be a civilised parenting experience. My world is a rational one. It has a methodology. It takes me from one point to another.

The emotional side of things I have never been great with in honesty. After saying “there, there” I am, in honesty, done. There is a set quantity (small) of responding to emotions that I consider to be unavoidable. I don’t want to sound cold...really…but people crying…it's all a bit dull in honesty…and loud crying..well that’s just bad manners.

So I picture myself at 3 am with a crying baby not knowing how to settle it..and I feel very, very lost and, well.... really rather broken.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am very excited by it all too, really I am. Just also terrified.

With every bit of breath in my body, with all that I am, I ask that God might guide me and transform me into a person who won't completely screw up my childs life.

Yours in fear,

The Broken Man

Poo

Having posted my smug "babies don’t cost much" post, I have started to look at the price of nappies. WOW, that hurts! To make things fun and with a nod to the landfill site issue, we thought it would be good to go down the reusable road so I thought I would have a quick google see which is best and get some. Not really so easy though is it? Do you want a nappy made out of bamboo, or out of goose feathers; do you want it attached to the baby with zips, velcro, poppers, a nail gun, string..and the cost of them – let me just mention that again – this is not a choice you can afford to get wrong.

I am one for experimenting; I will happily try different types of most things, but excuse me if I don’t feel to excited about picking a type that is poorly-fitting and results in me and my furniture getting covered in baby poo. It's also all very well saying "oh, we will try samples from different places", but that can mean lots of costs to different places. After the baby is actually born I will need to have a nappy there and then. If possible, I would like to have worked out how to operate it, so that, when it comes to putting nappies on the baby, instead of looking confused, bemused and generally incompetent I will have the appearance of a skilled competent (and rather dashing) father who makes mothers of other babies catch their breath as they wish that their husbands / life partners / significant others were such a master nappy putter-onners themselves.

What I don’t want is to be looking confused, befudled and slightly dumbfounded as I try and work out which way up the baby goes and how to get baby poo of my white shirt.

HELP! Please note – I do not want to be told that lots of good brands are out there etc, I want solid advice on “this is the best one, get it and your life will be better”! I can then get hold of some before baby is born and practice putting them on to a soft toy whilst wearing a blind fold.

Yours as ever

The Broken Man.