Hide the Playboys, it's Time to Find a Babysitter

Let’s talk babysitting.

I have no idea how to pick one, how much to pay one or, most importantly, how to trust one.

I’ve recently been thinking about babysitting and that has me pondering how this world has changed. Babysitting, like everything else, has evolved over the past generation.  

I’m not saying the art of watching children has changed. If you were skilled in that in 1970, you are skilled in that now. Actually, if you were skilled in that in 1970, you might be dead now. Or at least using a walker to get around, and that would make it tough to be a good babysitter.

What I am talking about is what babysitting says about us as a society. Gone are the days of calling up grandma or the trusted neighbor down the street. We are much more mobile now and that makes it much more difficult to find a good babysitter.

I also want to clarify that I believe babysitting and child care to be two different things. Child care is something one does as a profession. I formerly sat on the board of 4C, the local child care education and referral agency, and am fairly knowledgeable about child care and brain development from birth to 3. You want a child care professional spending 10 hours a day, five days a week with your child, not a babysitter.

Child care professionals take this s--t seriously. This is a permanent job for them, not a temporary gig. It involves teaching and developing children, not just making sure they don’t set the house on fire.

It is when my child care provider has an emergency and needs the day off that I must turn to a babysitter.

In fact, that’s really what got me thinking about this. Our provider needed a day off to put her dog to sleep. Sidebar: This situation just about brings me to tears, and it is not even my dog.  I am a dog owner and lover. I barely knew this dog, but the plight of anyone having to put their dog down sends me spiraling. I know it is a choice I will have to make one day with my 9-year-old German Shepherd, Vegas, or my 8-year-old Weimaraner, Murphy, and I am sure I will be a blubbering mess when it happens.

So, my child care provider needed a day off. But that meant that either Brooke or I had to take off work. In fact, any time our provider has a day off, one of us is cashing in a vacation day.

That is the state of our society today. Thirty years ago, generations of families lived within the same town, if not on the same block. If you needed someone to temporarily watch your child, you had a half dozen people to choose from. A couple of grandmas, aunts, uncles, even a trusted neighbor.

But, over the past generation, society has become much more mobile. I ended up in Cincinnati because of a job and stayed because I liked the town. Brooke went to school here and stayed. Neither of us has family in this area. Mine is four hours away, hers is six.

When we need a babysitter, we are s—it out of luck. Whether it be an emergency day off from our child care provider, a wild Friday night on the town or even something as simple as having to work late – we don’t really have anyone to turn to.

I’m sure there are people who would do it for us. We have friends. But they work during the day, too. We know some people with children in their teens. But they go to school and have after-school activities.

I envy people whose families live in Cincinnati. They simply dial a number and say, “Mom, I have to work late tonight. Can you get Johnny from school today?” My wife and I have to play the game of “who has more important things going on at work?” Or even, “who will get in more trouble for taking off?”

Another sidebar: Work is important and all, but you know when a babysitter would really come in handy? Saturday and Sunday mornings. It would change my life. Not only could I catch up on all the sleep I miss during the week, but I could do a little guilt-free partying on Friday and Saturday nights because I would have someone to watch the Berenstein Bears with the little one in the morning.   

I’m not saying we couldn’t find a babysitter if we really put out the effort. But the truth is, I’m afraid to leave my child with someone. I work in the child protection field. I hear stories every day of terrible things happening to children. I don’t want Sydney falling down the basement steps because my babysitter was distracted by an intense texting conversation with her BFF over which country song best resembles her current love life. Nor do I want the husband of one of my wife’s friends, who might drink 13 beers to "wind down" at night, giving my daughter a hard shake because she is making too much noise.

In her 13 months, Sydney has been watched by my mom for a week while we went to a wedding in California, my mom for a night when we went to a local wedding, and by my wife’s friend for three hours while we cashed in an expiring Groupon for a Cajun dinner.  Other than grandma and Libby, and her child care provider, Amber, she has spent all of her time with either mom or dad.

I know this can’t last. Something will come up that we have to be at. Or want to be at. Like a Ryan Gosling movie. Or a Justin Bieber concert. I need to break down and find a babysitter. I’m going to have to trust someone.

I guess I’ll start with the kids of friends. But how do you know if someone is trustworthy? Every parent is going to say their kid can babysit. And there are a lot of kids who can do everything right in every other walk of life, but they might get stressed by a crying baby and give them a good shake to settle them down.

I guess I could interview them and background check them like I did my child care provider, but what 16-year-old can hold up to that kind of scrutiny? Besides, aren’t all kids a bit irresponsible? When I was that age, I would have considered myself more responsible than most, but I remember visiting my girlfriend while she was babysitting and attempting to get my groove on while the children slept in the nearby bedroom.

Lest you think I was a complete knucklehead, please be aware that I cared for my younger brother and sister after school when I was about 13. I cooked the hot dogs or mac and cheese or Hamburger Helper when mom worked late. The house did not burn down. No one got arrested. My sister did get hit by a car once, but I was right there loading her into the ambulance when it came. 

But that was a simpler time. When I was a kid, my mom could have left me with any of our neighbors and I would have been fine. But nowadays, you never know if your neighbor is a psychopath and you’ll come home to find your child cooking in the microwave.

A friend of mine is a teacher. He gets all his sitters from his pool of students. That’s bold. I’d be afraid they’d rummage through my personal affects and I would show up at school on Monday to rumors that I have a prized Playboy collection dating back to 1988.

Not that I do. (Wink, wink.)

If I do finally find a babysitter, how much do I pay them? I was talking to a guy the other day who said he pays $15 an hour. So if he and the wife go out for Happy Hour to closing time, or spend a Saturday night at a wedding, he’s spending $100 on child care, as well as what he spent taking the wife out or buying the wedding present.

That’s a little out of my public-employee pay range. Plus, that guy has three kids. I have one. I’m thinking maybe $8 an hour? Here’s where writing a blog comes in handy -- you tell me what the going rate is these days.

There is so much that goes into this babysitting decision. Who to pick, how much to pay, where to hide the Playboy collection….I long for a simpler time when my street was filled with relatives and trusted neighbors who longed for nothing more than to earn $2.50 an hour watching babies.

Massillon, Ohio, circa 1978, I’m coming home. Keep the light on for me.

Half Zombie, Half Tazmanian Devil

The other day I came to work with my undershirt on backwards.

I regularly come to work with stains on my dress shirts and dried baby formula stuck to my hands.

I am daddy. I am dirty. I am disgusting.

Mornings are tougher with a baby. Hell, life is tougher with a baby. But mornings are particularly bad because you are going on less sleep than normal and trying to get a whole other person ready for their day. I’m half zombie, half Tazmanian Devil, if that is even possible.

I am waking up earlier than ever and still getting to work late.

Sydney is now falling asleep about 9 p.m. We have struggled mightily to get her into a sleeping routine. This earlier bed time is nice because we have time to ourselves before bed, but it means that her night-time wake ups start earlier. You can usually count on one at about 2 a.m. and another in between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. So, when 6:40 comes and it is time for daddy’s shower, he is prying his eyelids open with a tire iron.

Then the sprint begins.

Shower. Shave. Brush the teeth. Dress. Wake Sydney. Change Sydney’s diaper. Dress Sydney. Start the car to warm up. Put Sydney’s bag together. Wash Sydney’s bottles and pack her formula for her day in child care. Pack my lunch. Feed Sydney her morning bottle. Gather my lunch bag, work bag, Sydney’s bag and Sydney into the car and drive to child care for drop off.  Drive to work.

If all goes well, I am there at 8:15. Only 15 minutes late.

Oh how I long for those care-free days when I could watch the first 20 minutes of the Today Show, hop in the shower after the first break and still be to work by.…8:15.

How do you veteran parents do it? I can’t imagine adding another kid in the mix or trying to prepare some sort of hot breakfast.

I guess I should feel lucky. My wife helps me. And, I haven’t yet had her throw up on me so that I have to change clothes. Nor is she cranky pants and fighting me in the morning. She’s generally pretty happy.

Things could definitely be worse. Remind me of that the next time you see me walking around with my shirt on backwards.    

Surrounded by Naked Breasts and Still Bored

Recently, we went to breastfeeding class. You would think I would enjoy any two-hour period when I am surrounded by naked breasts. You would be wrong.

First, the only reason I was at the class was because the dastardly doula from our earlier birthing class casually mentioned she also teaches a breastfeeding class and the mothers usually bring their husbands along. To this point, Brooke was going to the class alone. But with the doula’s proclamation, Brooke immediately looked at me. I didn’t even protest. I simply asked what night it was so I could put it on my calendar.

This gets to this whole new-age dad thing that kind of bothers me. Doesn’t it seem like men have been sucked too far into this whole birth process? Look, I am going to be a better dad than my dad ever was. He only talked to me when he needed to yell at me and straighten my ass out. The only time he ever touched me was when he needed to knock some sense into me. I don’t have to go far to surpass my father in the parenting department.

But do I need to be there at every step of the process? I am pretty sure I will never breastfeed my child. Why waste a class on me? To support my wife? Brooke will be June Cleaver. She doesn’t need Homer Simpson screwing her up.

Some “duties” are just more woman-oriented, and vice versa. I can’t teach her about breastfeeding. She can’t teach me about peeing while standing up.

While I am on the subject, why do I have to be in the room when Sydney comes into the world? Whatever happened to the dad waiting out in the waiting room with a box of cigars? I have heard some stories and I am scared out of my mind on what might happen in there. One buddy was pushed from the room after someone yelled “Code Blue!” and sliced his wife’s belly open in front of him. Another watched as his wife’s internal organs were “hung on a rack” to prepare for a cesarean birth. (Really???? Do I need to see that?) I even saw an Oprah where a group of men proclaimed they could no longer have sex with their wives after witnessing the births of their children. Holy cow!

Is this going to end ugly for me? Let’s just say my head will stay north of the border at all times and if someone yells “Code Blue!” I am going to turn into a combination of Jessie Owens and Ray Charles. I’ll sprint out of there with my eyes closed.

My point is, there is so much pressure on men to play equal parts in the birthing process anymore that, if you beg out of anything because you are uncomfortable, you feel like John Edwards abandoning his cancer-stricken wife for the young hottie taking his campaign videos.

Thus, I agreed to go to breastfeeding class.

My wife began the class by knocking over her water bottle and dumping what seemed like a gallon of water on the floor. This class was held in an old tile classroom the likes of what you would find in an elementary school. This water was everywhere. If anyone knows me, they know I abhor negative attention on myself. I embarrass very easily. Well, you can bet everyone in the class stared at us like we had just brought Niagara Falls into the classroom. Great start.

By the way, I was also sitting in one of those little chairs you would find in a middle school, the kind where the desk is attached to the chair and folds up and down to let you in and out. I’m a big guy. These are tiny chairs. My desk wouldn’t even fold down. Sigh. It just keeps getting better.

There were eight women in this class. Six had their husbands with them. Score one for me in making the right call!

The teacher was a dietician who seemed old enough to have last breastfed while watching Walter Cronkite on the evening news. Seriously, she told us she had started “late” having her children and they were now 29 and 27. So, if she started late, she must have been in her late 50s or early 60s. She likely participated in some bra burnings in her time.

Oh well. I gotta believe breastfeeding is not something that changes a lot over time. It isn’t like there has been a technological revolution in the art of applying breast to mouth.

But this woman’s teaching techniques were a bit outdated. She used an overhead projector with overlaid slides. They were yellow and withered with age. I understand it is the content that counts, but would a powerpoint kill you, Oh Ancient One?

We spent the first part of the class learning about the anatomy of the breast, inverted and flat nipples, feeding times, etc.

Did you know if you have flat or inverted nipples, you are supposed to advise your “lactation consultant?” Do you think our founding mothers had lactation consultants? What did kids do back then if they couldn’t latch on? Maybe that is why George Washington never had any children --- Martha had inverted nipples!

The second part of the class featured a movie showing how to breastfeed. Again, the movie was a bit outdated. All of the women featured are either dead or grandmas right now.

Some of them were kind of hot, in a 1970s kind of way. But breastfeeding is not really sexy, so no matter how hot and how many naked breasts, I really couldn’t get into it.

I was a little interested on the various “holds” and “techniques” to breastfeeding. You have to make sure you don’t push the baby’s nose against the breast because then they can’t breathe. Been there!

The movies did touch on how laws have changed and you can pretty much breastfeed anywhere you want now. And your employer must give you a room to pump.

Brooke is the kind of mother who would be discreet about this kind of stuff. I’m the kind of dad who would throw an enraged fit if someone told my wife she couldn’t feed our daughter because it made someone else uncomfortable. I don’t care if Sydney sucks so hard she gets a milk mustache, no one is coming between my daughter and the nutrition she needs to lead a happy, healthy life.

Brooke plans to breastfeed for at least a year. We learned how good it is for the baby, so we are crossing our fingers it works. I’m crossing my fingers on both hands because if mom has to do all the feeding, dad gets to sleep more, right? We learned babies might feed every hour or two during growth spurts! Since I can’t breastfeed, Brooke is going to spend a lot of time getting up and down. This will be one part of this parenting thing I will not be able to share with her. I love you, honey!

The class was ok.  Brooke didn’t need me there, but I am glad I went. I would have felt like a real “boob” if she had to go through that all by herself.   

Sometimes, "I Love You, Honey" is the Best Answer

I realize it is tough for a pregnant woman to get comfortable. You’re blown up like a beach ball. A soccer match is going on in your stomach. You make more trips to the bathroom than two teen-age girls on their first double date. 

It puts us men in a precarious situation. We walk on eggshells hoping not to suffer your hormonal wrath.

A recent night with my wife ended with me climbing in bed BEFORE her. This was apparently a Biblical sin I was not fully aware of.

“Don’t you even care about me? Are you only concerned about getting in bed?”

Well honey, that is usually what we do at midnight when we want to go to sleep.

“I have to wash my face and brush my teeth and all you care about is getting in bed. You better not be asleep before I get in bed. ”

Ummm, OK.

What do I do in this situation? These scenarios come up frequently in a marriage. Men know the best thing to do is keep the mouth shut. Even breathing loud could set her off. Ultimately, you resort to saying only, “I love you honey” and hoping that is enough to calm the situation before it turns into an MMA fight.

Once in bed, she complained about the covers, the temperature, how much space she had…

“Why do you have more than half the bed?”

Well honey, my butt cheeks are actually hanging off my edge of the bed.

“It is so hot in here. How can anyone sleep in this temperature?”

Honey, it is the same temperature it was four hours ago when you complained loudly that it was TOO COLD.

“I can’t sleep in sheets that are wet.”

Honey, the sheets are not wet. How could they be wet?

“They are clammy. I cannot sleep with wet sheets.”

Honey, it is impossible for the sheets to be wet. There hasn’t been any water in the bed.

“I KNOW THE SHEETS ARE NOT WET. Can’t you understand my skin is clammy and it makes the bed feel wet? Why can’t you understand how I feel?”

I love you honey.

“You better not fall asleep before me.”

This Baby Business is Quite the Racket

My wife is a smart woman. Very smart.

When it came time to pick the stroller, she wanted me to come along. Now mind you, my wife took a friend with her when she did our wedding registry. She did the same when she registered for baby stuff.

She did this for two reasons. One, she knows I don’t give a damn. "Do you want knives with wooden handles or plastic handles?” Ah, just hand me one so I can plunge it into my heart and end the misery of wedding shopping.

Unless sporting equipment or big-screen televisions suddenly become appropriate wedding gifts, I don’t need to be there. I can live without having a say on the blender or punch bowl.

The second reason she didn’t take me is because she knew I would rain on her parade by telling her not to register for things we do not need. I am notorious for wearing, watching, listening to, sitting on and eating and drinking from something until it is absolutely not useful.

I have clothes from 1989 in my closet. I’ll be damned if I am going to throw away something that I can eventually wear if 1) it comes back in style and 2) I lose 100 pounds. My wife cringes every time she sees my colored jean shorts peaking out of the closet.

I have bed sheets from the 1970s. (Thanks, Mom!) They actually came in handy one Halloween when I dressed up like a Hare Krishna and wore the pale orange sheets.

I have pre-Jordan tennis shoes. Hell, they may be pre-Nike. I have a mammoth couch that I bought in 1994 that sits eight people comfortably...and my wife can’t stand it. I have 15 sets of dishware collected when others threw theirs out. I just tossed out my old VCR from 1988. I have plastic cups I got at beer parties during my days at Kent State.

The point is, unless something can’t be used anymore, I am going to keep using it and I won’t buy new until it breaks down.  So my wife knows if she takes me and tries to register for a can opener, I am going to point to the one I got at a garage sale the summer before going off to college and plead with her to take can opener off the registry. In other words, shopping with me is like sitting on a cold toilet seat. A miserable experience.

So, she took a friend for both the wedding and the baby shopping. We agreed whatever we registered for that was not purchased by someone else, we would purchase ourselves. Knowing this, I told her to only register for necessities and to be practical.

I don’t know if she followed my advice. She went, did her thing and I’ll see the results when I am forced to use something. I won’t even know the prices. Ignorance is bliss.

But I do know on one item – the stroller – she felt strongly I needed to be involved in the choosing. Once I saw the price, I knew why.  

If you asked pre-baby how much a good stroller would cost, I would say about $80. I don’t know why that price is in my head, but it seems reasonable to me.

You know what is not a good price for a stroller? $450!!!! But when my wife dragged me out to the baby store and I went through all the pros and cons of strollers with a kindly old gent they call “Mr. Stroller,” that is exactly the price of stroller we registered for.

My wife knows if she had come home and informed me she had just registered for a $450 stroller, World War III would have broken out. I bought my first car – a 1968 Dodge Monaco – for only $500! Yes, it was nearly 20 years old at the time, but it was big enough to fit 47 Sydneys comfortably, each with accompanying box of diapers.

Like I said, my wife was smart enough to know this was a purchase I needed to be in on personally.

Simply put, I had no idea. First, that is not even close to being a top-of-the-line price.  They had a stroller there that cost $1,200!!!!! I nearly had a heart attack and made Brooke a single mother when I saw that price tag.  I’m convinced it is just there to make people feel GOOD about buying a $450 stroller. I inquired of Mr. Stroller as to whom might be a typical purchaser of these plush buggies, and he said folks from New York City will occasionally pop down and buy one. Of course! You know Midwesterners are not that stupid.

What a racket this baby business is. I think I was in my 30s before someone clued me in that I was supposed to buy presents when my friends had babies. What the heck does a 35-year-old guy know about baby presents? They’ll get a Bengals T-shirt and like it. And while I am on the subject, what a racket the wedding business is. You have to take engagement photos AND wedding photos?

I predict eventually the human race will become extinct because people can no longer afford to marry and procreate.

So anyway, after I see that $450 is sort of the average price for a stroller, I am resigned to my fate. Mr. Stroller rolls through all the pros and cons – bottle holders! – and finally sells me on the fact this is actually a “travel system” and it turns into a car seat. So it is kind of a two-for-one deal. Right now, I am grasping for any solid reason to spend a car payment on something that can fit in one third of the trunk. I allow my wife to put it on the registry, but I feel extremely dirty when she does.

The good ending to this story is someone bought the stroller for us ---  thanks Mom and Dad Grover! -- and we will not have to buy it ourselves. But the moral of this story is that it is easier to sell someone on something if they do the research themselves.

Or maybe the moral is Mr. Stroller is making a killing on markups and the Ohio Attorney General should investigate his business practices.

Forget Sesame Street; Give Me Shark Week

Sydney is going to be the most safety-conscious girl in the free world. I would say the “entire” world but those communist countries are so secretive and I have no doubt they indoctrinate their children with a “the-world-is-out-to-get-me” attitude.

I have become addicted to the ID Channel. This is a channel that runs true crime 24-7. It is like NBC’s Dateline or CBS’ 48 Hours on steroids. There are tales of wicked wives, heinous husbands, diabolical daughters and sinister sons. Rich people are killing each other behind mansion walls, cons are talking about how “they almost got away with it,” wives are wondering who the hell they married and very nice respectable people are going missing just about every day.

Watch this channel for one day and you will be convinced every other person you pass on the street is O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony.

As soon as Sydney is old enough to understand, she and I are going to set up camp in front of the television – I know, a REAL CHALLENGE for me -- and learn about all the evil people in the world. Elmo and Grover can wait. This is important stuff.

No one will ever spike my girl’s drink, lure her into a car, slowly poison her with arsenic while convincing her it is the flu, or, god forbid, force her to a “second” location. Ladies, always take your chances at the abduction point!

Most of the people in these shows are killed by someone they trusted. And in the craziest ways. One son got bad grades and quit going to college. Rather than tell his family, he let them believe he was doing well and they even went to dinner to celebrate his graduation. Dessert was waiting at home. He had hired someone to lie in wait and kill his family while they walked in the door.

Another wife slowly poisoned her husband over many months, convincing him he had the flu. I think I saw a light bulb go off over Brooke’s head while we were watching that. If I start to get stomach pain any time soon, you can bet I’ll order a blood test pronto.

One lady’s married boyfriend – whom she’d leant $90,000 -- convinced her they were going on a getaway to remote Canada and she should not bring her phone (because it wouldn’t work) or pack any clothes because he would buy her all new ones when they go there. Furthermore, he told her not to tell anyone where they were going and she was to hide from sight in the back of his truck until they got out on the road. Of course, she was never seen again.

Psychopaths. Everywhere.

My motto has always been “Never trust anyone but your mother.” Sydney’s will be “Never trust anyone but your father.” I’m sure Brooke will be an awesome mother, but the smaller the circle of trust, the less chance for betrayal.

Little Carrie Jones from down the block wants you to come play? Well let’s punch little Carrie’s name  -- along with the names of her mom, dad and siblings -- into both Google and the County Clerk of Courts site to see if anything sinister comes up. You can never be too careful.

We won’t stop at the ID channel. Cheaters will be a regular on our DVR. I want my little girl to see every possible way her partner can cheat on her. He says he has to work late? Drop in at the office with a late-night snack. Always on the phone? Grab his phone when he is away and call every single person in his “recent calls” list to check their voice. He’s probably not above putting his latest girlfriend under the name “Frank.”

And don’t forget e-mail surveillance.

I may be the only person on earth who DVRs Cheaters, but I consider it a way of staying “real.” It keeps me in touch with my suspicious side. Nobody’s pulling anything over on me.

My wife hates this. Hmmm, I wonder why?

She also hates that I insist on locking the door as soon as I walk in, or locking the car door even if I am going to be gone for just 16 seconds. She really hates that I want the shades drawn at all times. Listen, I used to be reporter on the police beat. I can’t tell you how many times I read a police report that someone’s stereo or television or Sham Wow was “in plain sight, so the perpetrator broke in through the window and absconded with it.”

Sydney is going to get a good dose of real life in her formative years and she will be totally prepared for the evil that comes her way. She’ll never leave her drink unattended, always keep the shades drawn and run background checks on all her dates.  She’ll be the person everyone turns to for advice during a mass shooting or hostage situation.

But will it be enough? Can I cover all the bases? As I write this, a commercial for Shark Week just came on the TV. I think we’ll have to add that to our DVR list. She needs to know the bloody, gory consequence of swimming in the ocean too close to dawn or dusk.

I am the Professor of Nipple Confusion

We went to another child class this week. "Happiest Baby on the Block. "

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Three hours I’ll never get back.

The highlight of the class happens before it even starts. All the couples are waiting and this last couple scrambles in, searching for a seat. The wife is a pretty good-looking woman. The husband is a pretty ugly man. I mean really ugly.

I look at Brooke. I know she is thinking the same thing. She’s too respectful to say anything.

“That guy is doing pretty good for himself,” I whisper. “He probably makes good money.”

She retorts: “I bet a lot of people say that about you.”

Touche.

The woman teaching the class came off as kind of a New Age baby guru. She said she teaches a “hypno-birth” class. I assume that involves hypnotizing mom so the birth goes smoothly. I’d rather have an epidural.

She said this class would be based on treating the baby’s first three months like she was still in the womb. She said a year in the womb would be better than nine months for the baby and we, as parents, need to make sure she lives her life as closely as possible to what it was like in the womb.

O…K. Although, I CAN understand why the baby might like three more months in there. Every morning, I want three more hours of sleep. I imagine the feeling is similar.

She talked about different techniques for dealing with children, not putting your baby on a schedule, ALWAYS responding to your baby when she cries and that there is no possible way to “spoil” a baby.

Yeah, right.

She’s probably the kind of mom who allows her children to run around the restaurant screaming when people are trying to eat. Wouldn’t want to hurt their little feelings.

I remember reading the same thing about puppies. “They’re too young to understand, so don’t try to train them until they are a year old.” Well, at about six months, my Vegas decided to eat the baseboard while I was at work. When I got home, he got the whipping of his life. Guess what? No more baseboard eating.

To this day, eight years later, I can walk near that spot on the baseboard and say, “Did you do that?” and he will lower his head and sulk to a corner out of my eyesight. Too young? I don’t think so.

My plan is to have my child sleeping through the night at about three weeks, potty trained before she is 2 and enrolled in early college classes by 9.

But my wife believes the baby peas and carrots Miss New Age is dishing out. She insists we will respond EVERY time the baby cries. But she once insisted we’d always eat dinner on the dining room table – the same one that now serves as her scrapbooking center while I eat my meatloaf on the couch during another King of Queens re-run.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Maybe if you say it enough it will actually come true.  

She speaks in a monotone voice – with little interruption -- for the whole three hours. She tells us there is no such thing as colic, but then hands out a sheet with “Reasons for Colic.” Go figure.

She says a child’s cry has been proven in studies to be similar to an electric shock for parents. Good thing I am old and hard of hearing. Good luck, Brooke.

She did have some information that I found interesting. Apparently, babies like to fart. She said some of those grunts and faces they make are just them having fun cutting the cheese. Or, they are simultaneously using their stomach and anus muscles – a difficult thing for them – as they learn to poop.

Finally, Miss New Age was roping the dads into the conversation.

She did tell us that the babies actually taste and grow to like the foods the mom eats because it flows to them in the breastfeeding process. Moms have to beware of things like caffeine. I think Brooke had visions of kicking her Starbucks habit back into high gear, but those grand triple-cafe lattes will have to wait.

Good thing I am not doing the breastfeeding. Quarterly sales for the Cincinnati offices of Chipotle and Snappy Tomato Pizza would hit rock bottom if I had to cut out junk food. Or, I could just risk it and Sydney would develop an addiction to cheeseburgers before she was out of size S diapers.

Do diapers come in S, M and L?

During the class, we learned about a Dr. Karp from UCLA and his method for calming crying babies. I can’t remember all the details, but it involved wrapping your kid up in a blanket like one of those mini-hot dog appetizers you get at a party. Miss New Age said this gave the baby the security it felt in the womb.

She showed a film of this Dr. Harvey Karp in action. I swear, this guy was a child whisperer. He would take these crying, screaming kids, wrap them tight in a blanket, hold them in his arm and whisper “shhhhhh” at them for a few seconds and they would grow as happy and content as Paris Hilton in a Prada store.

This guy was amazing. But I couldn’t help wondering if this was like one of those advertisements where they show you a huge, juicy burger with colorful garnishes but when you show up to eat it you find a dry burger, about half the size, with wilted lettuce. How many babies DID NOT stop crying and never made the movie?

The class also dealt with things like nipple confusion and sleep deprivation, which Miss New Age accurately pointed out is a form of torture in many countries.

She’s really selling this whole parenthood thing.

Nipple confusion is the ONE THING I knew more about than Brooke going into this pregnancy. I had read a sliver of information on it in some humor book on pregnancy. Turns out the book was not that humorous, but it gave me a leg up on Brooke when it came to the complexity of various nipples.  

Don’t think I don’t lord this over her whenever I can.

Brooke: “Honey, we’ll have to introduce food to Sydney slowly and one at a time so we can determine food allergies.”

Me: “Sure honey, but the real key is that we don’t get her confused about your nipple, the bottle and the pacifier. This could cause her to not feed properly and she will slowly starve to death without us knowing it. Good thing I am around to tell you these things or our baby would never make it out of diapers.”

Brooke is never amused when I do this. Nor does she really appreciate my knowledge of nipple confusion.

In the end, this was another one of those classes I am not sure had great value. I think I am going to sink and swim on my own when it comes to this baby thing. Good thing I am a couch potato. Everything I really need to know about babies I am pretty sure I learned watching TV.

Strippers Are Daughters Too

My first attempt at naming our daughter did not go over well.  

I was at my in-laws' house drinking beer with my brother-in-law in the basement. Lucky for me, her family likes to drink beer. They live in Wisconsin, after all. You know how it is going to the in-laws. You have to be on your best behavior; you can never relax. Beer makes the time go by a little easier.

So her brother keeps talking about this friend who might be coming over. After about 12 beers and hearing the name a few times, I sprint upstairs and announce to Brooke and her mom that I have found the perfect name for our daughter.

“Blair has a friend with the name Sequin. I think that would be a great name for the baby.”

Silence.

My wife looks at me with that “How did I ever let this person impregnate me?” look.

Her mom looks at me with that “I KNEW this guy was not the right guy for my daughter” look.

“We will NOT name our daughter that,” Brooke says. “She will not be a stripper.”

“Blair doesn’t have a friend named Sequin,” her mom advises. “He has a friend named Seekman.”

In my drunkenness, I had apparently mistaken this guy’s last name for Sequin. My wife takes my beer from me and says it would be a good idea for me to stay upstairs with her for awhile.

Thus began my quest to name our daughter. I want something unusual and pretty. I don’t want her to be one of six Emmas or Madisons in her class.

Sequins are pretty and that name is unusual. She’d be the only girl in the school with that name.

But nooo, my wife, who has never been to a strip club in her life, thinks it sounds like a stripper name. She thought the same of some of my other choices, such as Tiffany and Layla.

Look, babies aren’t pre-destined by their names. You name a boy Mason, he isn’t necessarily going to lay bricks for a living. Jordans aren’t all going to play basketball. LeBrons…well, yeah, he’ll probably be a jerk and crap all over his hometown.

My point is, you can’t rule a name out because someone has chosen it as her stage name as she shakes her ta-tas to pay her way through college.

But that is what we do. My wife is a teacher. The name of ANY bad or obnoxious student she has ever encountered was immediately ruled out. I ruled out the names of stalker women from my past. Some of you are probably reading this post right now. THE COURT ORDER IS STILL IN  EFFECT!

Picking a name is more a process of elimination than anything.

I wanted our kid to have a BR name. Brian, Brooke and…? Moreover, both Brooke and I now have the same middle and last initials. We could all be BGG.

Brooke doesn’t like it. “You are boxing me in. Then we’d have to name our next child like that, too.”

And that’s a problem because…? Alliteration is clearly not a priority for her.

Brooke liked names that seemed old fashioned to me, like Annabelle and Clara. I liked hip names, like Roxy and Diamond and Sapphire and Kardashian.

You know, I probably haven’t been to a strip club in 15 years. I swear on my grandma’s grave.

In the end, we decided on a middle name first. Grace. Very classy. Never met a Grace I didn’t like.

First names were narrowed down to a few favorites. Claire, Chloe, Rosalee, Cecilly, Adrienne, Sydney. I didn’t really like Adrienne. I just let me wife put it on the list because, by this point, she was very short-tempered with me. When she gets upset and wants me to do something, she plays the labor card. “Do you know how hard it is going to be to push this baby out? It is the equivalent of you trying to pass a bowling ball.” OUUUCH.

I don’t know Brooke’s reasoning behind picking Sydney, but I had sound thinking behind mine. I was a huge fan of the television show Alias and fell in love with Jennifer Garner. She played an international spy named Sydney. In my mind, “Sydney” is associated with a super-hot chick who dresses in costumes to take down bad men and make the world around her a better place.

Sort of like a stripper.