Published Feb 16, 2013
A TV dad is not truly a Dad until everything goes wrong — there’s that moment when the child has thrown up; the car has rolled down the hill; dinner has boiled over; there’s a process server at the door; and now, the bumbling fool becomes dad, the runner of life, the center of the family. Apparently, I’m now really Dad.
Declan wouldn’t go down; the poor pup’s schedule wants to go 12 hours off everyone else’s. Through his angry screams, I quietly comforted him until it was feeding time. Then I comforted him continuously until the next feeding time, three hours later. Well, not continuously; I tried putting him down, which worked well until, stepping away from his bassinet, I whacked my toe on the chest at the foot of our bed:
The second-smallest toe is supposed to be that color, and as big as the next one up, right?
I was very careful to not scream or otherwise wake the baby, which was of course futile because he could smell my fear or something. So I also tried other soothing techniques, like shushing and rubbing his tummy, which seemed to be working well until the dog woke him with an incredible retching sound. I finished pulling the vomit-stained blankets out of the dog’s crate just in time for Declan to start crying again. Baby under my arm, I shooed the dogs out to finish throwing up outside.
Declan was crying because he’d leaked through his diaper. He did it again the next time I changed him, and the time after that as well. Later, I discovered that, in my exhaustion, I’d been accidentally tucking his t-shirts down the back of his diaper, creating a little capillary action conduit for pee.
But, despite the toe pain and the screaming baby, I’d managed not to wake my wife somehow. Which was great, because she let me sleep in the next morning, until she yelped when she took the cover off the crate and found the two dogs covered in poop. And then, tired and unable to figure out where the spigot is at the new house we’re renting, I washed the crate out by hand with Formula 409 and paper towels.
My wonderful wife let me go back to sleep afterwards; and, best of all, I only stubbed that toe one more time getting that crate clean.