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Chip Brown.

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Temp-Her

I never know what to do, or the right thing to say. The other day my wife came into our nursery and saw me leaning over the crib as the mobile spun and played a tune. Hannah was laying there cooing and gurgling. Missy looked at me and smiled and said, "penney for your thoughts."

I replied, "It's just amazing!"

I know I should have stopped there and called it quits. Everything seems clearer in hindsight. But I finished by adding, "I can't believe they can build a crib like this for $150!" New moms, much like expectant moms have little sense of humor.

As a new dad let me just clear the air and say, I'm scared to death. Before she was born I was worried about all sorts of syndromes. When she appeared i counted all of her fingers and toes. I had all the "NORMAL" soon to be dad worries.

I also had the little off the beaten path worry. I was worried, what if my baby is ugly? I mean everybody goes on about how cute new babies are. I've seen a lot of babies and folks they all aren't cute. Ugly people tend to have ugly babies. My wife is good looking, but what if the baby turned out to look like me? Who wants a baby that looks like me, a disgruntled 30 something year old guy? This reminds me of a joke:

A woman gets on a bus holding a baby.

The bus driver says, "That's the ugliest baby I've ever seen." In a huff, the woman slammed her fare into the fare box and took an aisle seat near the rear of the bus. The man seated next to her sensed that she was agitated and asked her what was wrong. "The bus driver insulted me," she fumed.

The man sympathized and said: "Why, he's a public servant and shouldn't say things to insult passengers."

"You're right" she said. "I think I'll go back up there and give him a piece of my mind."

"That's a good idea" the man said. "Here, let me hold your monkey."

Hey, I said it reminded me of a joke, not a "good" joke.

Fortunately, little Hannah looks like her mother so she's saved from inheriting my ugliness.

However, and unfortunately, she did inherit my temper. She knows what she wants and she wants it now! She likes her mommy. She'll tolerate dad, or as she refers to me "Bottle Guy" when mommy isn't around but if mommy is in the room she wants nothing to do with me. Some people say that babies are a good judge of character.

But now I'm worried about this temper. More to the point I'm worried about parent teacher conferences when she starts school. I can already see them calling me in for a "little" talk. My dad says this is that sin revisiting thing he warned me about when I was in school.

Have you seen how young these teachers are these days? I'm going to get told off by a twenty one year old girl! This girl, young enough to be my daughter will give me a good going over for what Hannah did in school. How do you tell the teachers from the students these days. How embarrassing would it be to walk in and say, "would you get the teacher for me little girl?" only to find out the little girl is the teacher. I'm going to get Hannah expelled I know it.

This teacher is going to yell at me for having Hannah to school late. I'm late for everything, I know that will be no different. My little girl will be mortified when the teacher yells at her daddy in front of the whole class. "Mr Brown, Hannah is supposed to be here before the big hand is on the six and the little hand is on the eight!"

Maybe by now, after reading my articles, you've realized my mind wanders from here to there. I have the attention span of a lit match. Oh man, am I ever in trouble if Hannah takes after me in that department.

Teacher: Mr Brown, we'd like to talk to you today about Hannah being disruptive in class.

Chip: Yeah, I know my daughter has a short attention span...Hey, cool playground!

I guess if Hannah is lucky, her mommy will attend all the parent teacher conferences. She knows how to act in public. But then again, maybe her punishment for being bad at school is having to watch her daddy go to school and try to fix it.

Failing a math test for my daughter will carry the penalty of having to watch her dad exclaim in front of her class:

"Yeah, we ain't ever been too good with numbers in the Brown family, we'uns is good at that English."

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