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I am far from a perfect parent. I make my mistakes, and have had my share of battles with my elders (and usually wisers) over mistakes they have already learned from. Now that I am on my second child, and have a vast number of errors under my belt, I am more inclined to listen to the advice of others. My husband has yet to absorb that simple concept. He is the essence of patience, and rarely panics in the face of adversity. That is his downfall. He lacks the sense of impending doom that I rely upon to investigate, learn, and prepare. Despite suggestions, warnings and forceful lectures, he continues pig-headedly to learn everything in his own, last-minute hard way. Before the birth of our child, I pointedly left birthing and parenting guides on his nightstand. While he was thorough in what he managed to study, armed with his ruler and yellow highlighter, his sporadic reading lagged months behind my actual rate of gestation. While I was out pricing cribs and reading breast pump manuals, he was delaying making his choices for the name of our soon to arrive bundle. Finally exasperated, I allowed him to complete a birth plan, but it was my plan I deposited with our doctor. It was my sister who received the job of Head Coach, and who I relied on to enforce my wishes, should daddy cave in to his obsession to sneak the placenta home. When our son was born, my husband had yet to enter the third trimester in his reading 'homework'. The eve of our son's delivery, while I labored at eight centimeters, my sister snapped a photo of daddy feverishly pouring over the child birth chapter. In the end, under the doctor's watchful eye, he did manage to catch our son and cut the cord. >From that point on, he was convinced he was a parenting expert. He insisted it was the after-effects of euphoria, his exhausted delight that I and the baby had come through the birth safely. The nurses seemed to be afraid he was under some sort of heavy sedation. While I sat with the baby and chatted with relatives, he slept, virtually unconscious, in the bedside hospital chair. When my doctor appeared twelve hours later, I begged her to release us so I could get home and get some sleep, too. I pointed out that my husband had benefited from a long nap, and would be well able to take over the next shift. At home, trouble started with the first diaper. After being up for 36 hours, I waited until my newborn was asleep, and followed. Soon after, I woke to the sound of shrill cries and desperate mutterings. I saw daddy leaning over flailing baby, up to his elbows, literally, in meconium. He had already gone through a foot high pile of diaper wipes, and gutted the Diaper Genie. Strewn across the bed was thirty feet of plastic diaper-pail liner. He had plainly abandoned any form of logic, and was cracking under the shrieks of his newborn son. As soon as I ascertained it wasn't as drastic as his expression indicated, I snapped, "haven't I already done ENOUGH for one day?! " rolled over, and left him to finish the mop up. At the baby shower, my brother -in-law commented on his suspicion that my husband would nurse if it were physically possible. We shook our heads when he constantly wore the baby in a sling, tucked beneath his coat. He developed an expecting mother's twinges and sore lower back, which worsened as our baby got heavier. When his paternity leave was up, he delayed returning to work for an additional two weeks. When he finally returned, the first day he took our baby with him. When baby got to big to fit in our queen sized bed with us, he begged me to delay moving him into the waiting bassinet, which had stood empty for months. When it was time for baby to sleep in his own bedroom, my husband was bitterly disappointed that he hadn't "needed" him during the night. Now that our son is a healthy, robust little boy, I still laugh at my husband's penchant for parenting with his own flair, or the way he generally goes about doing everything exactly the opposite way I, and everyone else advise. No one can deny the bond he has with his son, even though he has yet to finish that last chapter on childbirth. Lori Alexander is an American freelance writer presently living in Dublin, Ireland. Prior to freelancing, she was a Program Coordinator for Developmentally Disabled Adults in California. She can be contacted at lalexandervg@eircom.net |
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