AKA

Noodles...WHAT?!

I grew up in NH. I am Scottish. I am really, really white. But my friends and I grew up listening to Wu-Tang Clan, one of the most popular and raunchy rap groups of our time. Now that we are older and more mature we regularly make references to those days long ago and giggle like thirteen year old girls. Seriously, we're pretty cool.

Before Natalie was born, we were engaged in such a giggle-fest while discussing her name. Since we didn't know if she'd be a boy or a girl we needed something ambiguous to call her in the meantime...we settled on "Noodles", a reference to an old Wu-tang song in which they list off countless nicknames. I don't know exactly how and I don't know exactly why but we found it uproariously funny.

In deference to Wu-tang and for the sake of posterity I am posting all the nickname's Natalie has accrued in her first 8 months.

Noodles
AKA
The Pea
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Squirmy Worm
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Yoopie
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The poop machine
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Yooper-uni
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Natalie-bo-batalie
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Peaches
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Worm-face
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Milk-face
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Giggles
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Silly-billy-goat
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Chubby Cheek-ers
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Madame Mc-Poops
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Pea-Head
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Big-Baby Worm
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Babble-onian princess
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Diaper Dandy
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Super-dooper-pooper
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Peaches
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Cuddles
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Doll-face
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Baby Awesome-o

That's all I got for now...I'm glad I am writing this blog so that some day she'll look back and realize just how cool and not at all lame her daddy is...

Consumer Confusion

There are lots of Diaper Cremes out there...Choose wisely.

As a man, (yes my Y chromosome is intact) it's soldered into my DNA to hate shopping. Like all men before, I've learned the steps to successful purchasing...

1. Walk into store
2. Locate desired item
3. Ignore any alternatives to said item
4. Pay for item
5. Leave store

This five step program helped me mitigate the large consumer world for the first 28 years of my life. Sure, there were shopping trips with my mom and sister when I was growing up that nearly killed me, but I survived those long tedious afternoons and thought they were gone forever.

Then we had Natalie. Luckily, through the generous nature of friends and family, we haven't had to do much clothes shopping but I've discovered, through trial and error, that the manufacturers of all baby related items assume that women are making the purchases.

For example, the other day I had to buy some nipples, (are you expecting me to make a joke here? You should have learned by now that this blog is above such low-brow humor and I would never make any kind of joke about buying nipples) so I entered the store and proceeded with the five step program. I found the nipple section of the store, (I was secretly hoping they'd have a whole aisle labeled "nipples" so I could take a picture and send it to my other mature friends) located the specific nipples we needed for the specific bottle we use. This task was difficult for my tiny male shopping brain cell because there are 349 different brands of bottles and nipples. But I got the brand of nipples we use and headed for the checkout.

I decided I needed something manly to divert attention from the fact that I was buying nipples, so I purchased a sports magazine and a bottle of Mountain Dew. "Take that!, judgemental checkout girl" I said to myself.

The next day I woke up fully prepared to boil the previously purchased nipples (you have to boil nipples before you use them) and put them in our nipple rotation, weeding out some of the older nipples intended for younger and less awesome babies than Natalie.

As I began to rip open the package of nipples, I saw a small but vibrant word on the cardboard backing..."Advanced". My tiny male shopping brain cell groggily rolled out of bed and stared transfixed at this word, confused by its meaning. At first, he surmised, it must mean this is for more advanced babies but then he sadly realized that this particular nipple was meant for our brand of bottle but not for the subset of bottles within our brand. The brain cell cursed and many interested onlooking brain cells, which included a pack devoted to baseball box scores and another extremely large group who were only interested because they heard the word nipple, turned to see what was happening.

So now I need to go back to the store and find the right brand of nipples and the right subset within that brand. I see this type of thing happening many more times as Natalie gets older. A mother would have read the label, read the back cover, seen if the nipple came in any different colors, and found a sales clerk to ask if any generic brand nipples fit our particular bottle. In other words, she would have followed the complex female shopping constitution that is too long for any man to understand. But she would have bought the right nipple in the first place.

In related news, we are going shopping this weekend. Luckily, however, my brain cell and I aren't worried. Sara is coming, which means he'll just have to wake up every so often and agree that whatever item she picked out is perfect. Then we can go back to thinking about box scores and other manly things.

Tiny Devil

This is my dog, I call him Cerberus

In what can only be described as an extremely disturbing development, Natalie has begun making a deep guttural grunting noise that would fit perfectly in a twisted Steven King novel about a possessed baby. In response, I've invested in some holy water, a cross, and a really cool ghost-buster back-pack...she does kind of resemble the stay-puff marshmallow man...

The Dangers of Dad-dom

Attack of the Baby!

No one said it was going to be easy. I heard the horror stories of sleepless nights and fifteen diapers-a-day but there were some things I wasn't quite prepared for...some silent but deadly dangers, often specific to stay-at-home dads, that have been overlooked. No longer.

1. Not-the-momma: While you can argue all you want that stay-at-home dads can do just as good a job as stay-at-home moms, there are some things we just can't do. For instance, If I want to take Natalie someplace I need to think about and prepare a food source, since I lack the necessary mammary glands and accompaniments.

2. Daytime drama: As human beings we crave stories, especially those with recurring characters, good and bad guys, and drama. Thus far, I've managed to avoid daytime drama's (otherwise known as Soaps) because I fear watching them might actually result in the growth of previously mentioned accompaniments (although one could also argue that would be a very good reason to watch). I need the baseball season to start so I have box scores to read and games to watch but until then I've settled on the daily drama that is the democratic primary race...

3. Fatherhood fifteen: Every college graduate knows about the "freshman fifteen", the weight you gain during your first semester of school, but the fatherhood fifteen is just as deadly. When you stay at home all day snacks are easily accessible and when you have fifteen minutes to make and eat a lunch, frozen burritos sound pretty good...mmmmm...frozen burritos....

4. Random noise generator: When you spend most of your day around an infant, you do and say silly things. And when you're me, you do them all the time. Breaking the habit when venturing out in public becomes difficult. It's one thing when I've got Natalie with me but it probably looks a little odd when I'm waiting in the grocery line making elephant noises, waving my arms wildly, and saying to the check-out girl in a sing-song voice "Do you have my bananas? Yes you do...you like bananas don't you...oh, bananas are tasty...Can you eat a whole banana? I bet you could...you little banana eater."

5. Sleepy stumbles: Recently, after breakfast, I put the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the fridge. Luckily these sleep-deprived mistakes have not yet extended to putting the baby in the oven and the chicken in the cradle...

6. No, dear, I'm not saying your toes are big...: Dads and Moms are different. Even in a stereotypically reversed marriage like mine, those inherent differences come through. Sara is more "motherly" and at times I find myself infringing upon that natural instinct simply because I'm in charge more often. The outfits I pick don't match, I play too rough, and I worry about the wrong things (like if her throwing arm is developing). It's inevitable that when one parent stays home, the other feels left out, but I think those feelings are stronger when the Mom is the one going to work.

7. Protection: When I stopped playing baseball a few years back I put my protective cup away, sure I'd never need it again...then we had a baby. Her tiny little legs are like a pair of ball pein hammers whacking away haphazardly while I carry her around the house. She is apparently set on being an only child.

Ultimately, the life of a stay-at-home dad is great but let this blog serve as a warning to any prospective fathers. Get healthy now, avoid daytime television, and get that jock out of the closet...you're going to need it.