Babies: Pooping Black Tar and Vomiting with the Force of a Firehose

More confessions: I’m afraid about many things when it comes to having this baby.

I admit it. I’m scared.

I’ll save the biggest thing that scares me until later. You’ll have to read until the end for that confession.

For now, let’s talk about sleepless nights, poopy diapers, projectile vomiting and accidentally killing my baby.

I’ll start with the obvious. I’m 45 years old. I don’t have a lot of energy. I need every second of sleep possible.

I’ve always been a light sleeper. I get about two hours of solid sleep, then I toss and turn for the rest of the night. If my dog so much as farts, it wakes me up.

Speaking of dogs, they contribute to my lack of sleep. The dog I raised, Vegas, is a handsome German Shepherd who is well-trained and will sleep silently in his bed until noon if I tell him to.

The dog Brooke raised, Murphy, is a Weimaraner who. …well, let’s just say Murphy is special. I’m being sincere here. Brooke is a special education teacher and she tells me about the kids in her class. One will suck on things to calm himself. Another will get so excited he runs around in circles. Many require constant touch.

Well, Murphy has a blanket he sucks to calm himself. And, he runs around like he is crazy every time you walk in the door. I could be gone 13 seconds to pick up the mail from the mailbox and when I get back he acts like I have been gone for three months. And don’t try to sit without him touching you. I have a wrap-around couch that could probably sit eight people. Yet, when I sit on it and the whole rest of the couch is empty, Murphy will attach himself to my hip.

What are the chances a special education teacher would end up with a special education dog? I call it divine intervention. Murphy needed an angel.

Anyway, Murphy likes to get up about 3:30 a.m. It used to be 5, then it was 4:30, then 4 and now 3:30 a.m. He wants to go out and, more importantly to him, he wants to eat.

Now Brooke can sleep through an ACDC concert. Seriously, someone could walk in and murder me while I am lying next to her and she wouldn’t even stir. So, when Murphy starts prancing around at 3:30 a.m., I have two options: tell him to go back to sleep or get up with him.

Neither works for me. If I tell him to go back to sleep, he basically wakes up every 15 minutes thereafter to see if he can rouse me. Since I am such a light sleeper, this means I never really get back to sleep. If I get up with him and let him out, I am then awake and can’t go back to sleep. It is a no-win situation.

I tell you all this because, who in my household do you think is going to get up with a crying baby? Me, or Miss Rip Van Winkle? I realize she will have to breastfeed, but believe me, if it’s not feeding time, she will be as unconscious as a hibernating bear.

Man is not meant to go on four hours of sleep a day. Especially 45-year-old men. I usually catch up on my sleep with weekend naps. I hope Sydney likes to nap.

Poopy diapers scare me, too. I don’t have a weak stomach. I once sat through an entire autopsy. I saw people get stabbed and shot during my days on the cop beat. I pick up Vegas and Special Ed poop every weekend.

But I read a book that said baby poop is like BLACK TAR for the first few weeks. Apparently, the amniotic fluid has that effect on excrement. Seeing something like that coming out of my sweet, innocent little daughter is going to scar me for life. Throw in projectile vomiting and I am going to feel like I am father to Linda Blair in the Exorcist.

I’ve heard the stories. You’re dressed for work, ready to head out the door and you pick up your little princess only to have her leak some noxious gel-like substance out of her diaper or spew the entire contents of her stomach on to your head with the force of a fire hose.

Oh joy.

Also, my wife has instilled the fear of Marilyn Manson in me over wiping my daughter correctly. Wipe down, not up! Make a mistake and you might kill your daughter!

That gets me to my fear of somehow doing something stupid that results in my daughter’s early demise.  Let’s say I survive the sleepless nights, Black Tar diapers and geyser-like eruptions.  How do I avoid accidentally killing her? What if I drop her? Sit on her? Drive over her?

What if Special Ed mistakes my swaddling daughter for the blanket he sucks on to calm himself?

This is a dangerous world. I am a clumsy guy. I am worried about not holding her head up right or feeding her food that chokes her or forgetting her in the backseat of my car while I’m involved in a 28-hour poker game.

I’m scared about being a dad.

But one thing scares me more than anything. I am 45 years old. That’s old to start this journey. My biggest fear is that somehow I will depart this world when my daughter is still young. I don’t want to put her through that. I don’t want an 8-year-old or 10-year-old or 12-year-old little Sydney to grow up without her daddy.

I want to finish this adventure and see her through to adulthood. I want to make sure she’s ok to stand on her own. I want to hold her hand until I know she’s got life figured out.

If I get to see her graduate college, travel the world, find the love of her life and have children…well, that’s gravy. But all I am really asking the good Lord for is the chance to be daddy to my little girl until she’s old enough not to need me anymore.