Required Reading for Dads

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Guest post from MacDad:

So I'm in an airport. Tired, mentally bankrupt, fighting back a cold, and nothing to look forward to except the next several lost hours spent being queued through anonymous glass and steel corridors and into an airborne, aluminum tube full of meat before I get back to the family at home. And then I do something I wouldn't normally do. I buy a paperback and start reading it.

I finished it later that night. I was home, and although the world was quiet, I had an immediate need to find my sleeping wife and son, to touch them and to feel that that they were real and safe and that I had done my job for the day.

The book is The Road. I don't think I'm going to see the film when it comes out next week. There is something pure and unspoiled in the bleak landscape of words that Cormac Mccarthy has assembled. There is something untouchable in the tenderness between the unnamed father and son.

My wife wonders what's different about this book to me, and why I finished it when I leave so many others halfway through. For a new father, this is the story that lays plain all of the undecorated love and horror that I normally keep safely to myself. I don't expect her to like the book.

I Have No Idea What Happened To My Placenta, but I Can Guarantee It Didn't Become This

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The headline to this story is Placenta Teddy Bear: Meaningful or Just Gross? I vote for Just Gross and, yes, that's it to the right. All together now - EW!

I asked MacDad if he sneaked a look at MacBaby's nine-month source of nourishment. He said no. So, really, I have no idea what happened to it after they took it out.

But, I will use this opportunity to plug (ha) cord blood donation. Unless you're planning on privately banking your cord blood, there really is no down side to donating. The only difference in your delivery is that the nurse collected an extra couple vials of blood before I delivered. If your child needs the marrow before it is donating, he or she will receive it.

The organization I donated to called after MacBaby was born to let me know that my umbilical cord supplied an ample amount of material to work with. We will find out if any child in need ever receives it. In the meantime, I will not be getting any tattoos in case MacBaby#2 comes along and I donate a second time.

Wherein I Admit I Can't Do It All - Or Sometimes Anything

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People tell you that your life will change after you have kids, but you don't realize just how much until you're living it.

During the past seven and a half months, I've uttered the phrase "I can't do everything!" more times than I can count. Some days, though, I struggle with getting anything done, let alone everything.

When you realize you're out of diapers, your child has one clean pair of pants, and there's no food in the house, I call in the reinforcements. Running our household has gone from something I could handle by myself to easily a three person job. Luckily, MacBaby's grandparents and aunts and uncles live conveniently close by and are (usually) happy to come over and help so I don't have a nervous breakdown (she said while putting a dirty bib in the fridge - not the washing machine).

Aside from working, household tasks, and ensuring that MacBaby is taken care of, I have no idea how to fit anything else into my life. The half-hour of daily exercise needed to keep your heart healthy? Yeah, right. Hanging out with friends? Sure - come on over and watch me wipe banana off the little guy's face.

The issue I struggle with the most is date night. It's always a nice time when MacDad and I escape two hours for a nice dinner with a couple of glasses of wine, but I still feel guilty for leaving MacBaby at home. Especially when it's so easy to stay in and cuddle with him.

I know he's in good care with family members, but I don't know how often we should go out a deux or what time of night.

Typically I prefer Saturday nights because we're with him all day, and will still have another day before we head back to work. If we go out at 6, we come back in time to put him to bed, but we're missing awake time with him. If we go out at 7, he'll likely be asleep and won't miss us, but that arduous task is left to other family members.

How do you fit it all in? When do you and your partner spend time together?

A Budding Bookworm?

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MacDad and I are avid readers. Or, at least I used to be.

We introduced MacBaby to books days after he came home from the hospital. Now, he loves them. Banging on them, that is.

MacDad has been reading The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain. Every night, MacBaby grabs the book and tries to beat up Mark Twain.

We try to read Goodnight Moon, which, from adult perspective, is a very strange book, but that's for another post. Instead of listening to the story, MacBaby pounds on the kittens with mittens.

Instead of realizing that MacBaby is at the stage where he likes to bang on everything -- my head included -- I have decided that MacBaby has inherited our love of books.

He also loves to watch MacDad make us dinner, therefore he will be a talented chef. He likes to play with his stuffed whale, therefore he will be a marine biologist. He loves his music class, therefore he will someday shred a mean guitar. He'll sit and watch a baseball game, therefore he will one day win a Golden Glove.

It will be interesting to see, which, if any, of these predictions will come true. In the meantime, it's fun to watch him create his own path in the world. I never knew that, even at seven months, he'd be on his way.