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Chip Brown.

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3rd Thoughts

I've been checking into this parenting stuff recently. As you know, last Christmas my wife told me I was going to be a dad. My original worries were over whether or not I'd warp the kid's mind with some of my ideas. I worry about the whole concept of children and parenting. In all, we spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up. There is just something about that that tells me none of this will make sense to me.

Everybody gave me horror stories of the financial responsibilities, but I ignored them. After all, babies are small how much more expense could they add to the household.

However, more and more people told me I'm going to go broke because I'm having a kid. So, I decided that maybe I should do some checking on my own. Well, there is this one thing I figured out right off the bat. All these people standing on street corners selling cocaine are in the wrong racket. They should be selling children's medication!

I stopped at the local Rite Aid and explored all the medications in the children's section. You can't buy a medication just for a cough, you have to know what sort of cough it is. How am I supposed to know that? A cough is just that, a cough. Doesn't matter in the end because none of the cough remedies are under $1000 an ounce. I guess I'll just record my kid's cough, drive to the drug store play the tape, empty my wallet on the counter and tell the druggist to help himself.

So I figure they're right, I am going to be broke.

How else is this kid going to disrupt my life? Surely it won't be a hindrance to my mid morning naps will it. Kids do sleep a lot don't they?

My wife says none of the hassle of having a rug monster around the house will bother her. I'm a realistic type, I know better, she's the sort that thinks everything is rosy. She is ultimately orderly with everything having it's time and place. I'll bet you she could tell you right now, how many packets of ketchup are in our fridge.

So she wants me to paint every room in the house before the kid gets here. Now, I'm realistic, why paint when the kid will decorate for us? My wife wants her house to look just so, I feel it's my duty to prepare her for the coming events.

She tells me she doesn't care if the kid messes the house a bit, it's all worth it. So next week I'm going to spread peanut butter on the couch, jelly on the curtains put my muddy hands all over the walls and then cover the handprints in technicolor crayon. When she gets home I'll yell surprise. And when she starts screaming at me I'll ask her, "is that how you'll react to our child?"

We both enjoy the fine art of sleep. In fact, we put great stock in a good night's sleep. I realize that once the kid gets here, all that is over with. My wife, on the other hand has her head buried in the sand over this topic too. I figure it's my duty as a good husband to enlighten her.

So again, next week I intend to get up at 2am and start screaming my head off. I'll keep it up for about an hour and refuse to tell my wife what's wrong. I'll get a bag and fill it with ten pounds of wet towels and insist that she carry it around the living room while I scream. After an hour I'll suggest that if she sings silly songs to me for a few moments I might go back to bed.

The next morning I will get out of the bath and refuse to get dressed. No matter how much my wife yells at me that she's going to be late, I'll refuse. If she tries to make me, I'll run around the house naked and try to get out the door. I was over at a friend's house the other day and that's what their kid was doing. I let him out. There's something humorous about a naked kid running around the yard with a parent chasing him.

So, I'll try to think of all the other things kids are going to do and get my wife prepared. I thought about sticking a candy bar in the car's cassette player, but I remember how mad she got the last time I did that.

While most expectant parents look forward to the pitter patter of little feet around the house, that's not me. No, I look forward to the day that my wife is sitting in the floor disheveled, tearing the Barney plush animal limb from limb, singing the "I love you" song (substituting dirty words). I look forward to leaning over giving my wife a big hug and whispering...I told you so!

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