Daddy's Main Goal: Keeping Baby Alive

Women and men take care of babies differently.

I’m being nice here by simply differentiating. The fact is, women are just plain better at it.

Taking care of Sydney is an EVENT for me. If that is my job for the day, that is pretty much all I do. Plan on hunkering down in the house, with a pile of toys to one side and a stack of diapers to the other. This is a job that requires 100 percent of my focus, for fear I screw it up.

But it is not unusual for me to come downstairs and see my wife with Sydney in one arm while she does the dishes with another. Or, she has no problem taking Sydney with her to the store, or incorporating her into other normal parts of her life.

For her, Sydney is just part of her daily routine. For me, I won’t even make a sandwich if I am watching Sydney. When Brooke went away for a weekend bachelorette party, I lost seven pounds.

Why is it like this? Why are the genders so different when it comes to baby rearing? I realize I am generalizing here, but in my conversations with other mothers, I’ve discovered many dads are just like me: inept at multi-tasking with the baby.

Why can I never miss a beat at work while simultaneously taking a call from the media, writing a speech for my boss and directing one of my employees on how to handle a client complaint, yet I can’t seem to keep an eye on my daughter and feed the dogs at the same time?

My attempts at multi-tasking usually end up with the daughter crying. Loudly. Either she has a dirty diaper for four hours or she has plopped off the bed onto the floor or she is choking on a piece of debris she mistook for a tasty treat while rolling around on the carpet.

Seriously.

I can be sitting there with my daughter for two hours and my wife will enter the room and within 15 seconds say, “She needs her diaper changed.” I check and she does. Mommy wins again. Daddy 0, Mommy 1,247.

Sigh.

If we decide to go out to dinner, Brooke has no problem packing up a couple of bowls of baby food and feeding Sydney dinner while she is eating her own. I would be completely uncomfortable doing this and would opt to feed Sydney before or after the restaurant. That way, I ensure she is not a distraction from my own eating (very important if you know me!) and I decrease the chance of her causing some sort of scene in the restaurant.

But my wife nonchalantly feeds Sydney her sweet potatoes and peas with one hand while nibbling at her Frisch’s Big Boy with the other.

I once took Sydney outside to sit on the porch and wait for her mother to come home. Easy enough. It is like being inside; we just sit here and play.

Well, there is sun outside. And babies are fair-skinned. And there was a huge yellow jacket burrowing its way into my wooden porch railing, so I got distracted tracking down a can of wasp spray and flooding the hole. Next thing I know, Sydney is sweating and turning lobster red.

Dad of the Year strikes again.    

I wouldn’t even attempt to take my daughter on some kind of adventure outside the house without my wife. I’m just grateful I have managed to drop her off at the day care every morning on the way to work without forgetting her in the car.

Someday, this will change. A day with daddy will be a trip to the museum or the playground. But for now, I am not taking any chances. When mommy is not around, the living room becomes command central. Sydney alternates between the Jumperoo and her toys on the floor while daddy stands at the ready, diapers in one hand and baby food in the other.

My smug, multi-tasking wife can look down on me all she wants. At least Sydney will be alive when she gets home.