The Breastfeeding Daddy

ME: Hi, my name is Tom and I'm a breastfeeding dad.
CROWD: Hello, Tom!!!

Ok, so I'm obviously not THAT kind of breastfeeding dad. The "I have nipples Greg, can you milk me" kind of breastfeeding dad. But I am the dad of an exclusively breastfed baby. Being a breastfeeding dad is not as easy as it sounds. It is, of course, not tougher than being a breastfeeding mom because those of you out there that do it, including my wife, are freaking miracle workers. Having a child latch themselves on to you and suck you dry as their sole means of sustanance is exhausting and takes a special person. And those special people are women for a reason because guys, lets face it, we are way too lazy and selfish to do it (don't argue with me, we are).

There are pros and cons to being a breastfeeding dad. First, the pros. The most obvious pro is that I get to sleep WAY more because I don't get up to feed the CEO in the middle of the night. Also, when the CEO lets out her rebel hunger cry during the day, I can pass her to her mom and watch Sportscenter for the 9th time. Well, at least until she goes back to work, at which time, this is what I will be like during the day. And lastly, I don't have to strap a machine to my chest to extract whatever the life-sucking child left behind so we can freeze it and feed it to her later. Believe me, you couldn't pay me to put the breast pump anywhere near my nipples. I'd rather put the dogs' electric fence collar on and sprint out of the yard. 

Now for the fun part: the cons of being a breastfeeding dad. These basically consist of the comments that people make that are ridiculous, make me mad, or make my wife mad (the latter being the most important for obvious reasons). What I've found is that these comments generally originate from one group of people: Anyone who has never had a kid. Before everyone freaks out and calls me an a-hole, this is not a blanket statement for everyone without kids AND I'm not saying it's even their fault. I was in this category not that long ago and really, those without kids just haven't had to think that much about it yet. That being said, let's get to it.

The first one is, "Are you, like, breastfeeding breastfeeding?" What the f does this even mean? How would one do that? Would your breasts have breasts that you feed from? Would the baby eat from mom's boob and then dad's boob? Or the dog? Yes, my wife is breastfeeding our child. From her breast. And only from her breast. It's not a complicated concept. Right off the bat, you can see there isn't much thought that goes into what people will say/ask about breastfeeding.

Next we come to "I mean, I don't have a problem with breastfeeding in public but some people do." Really? I have never heard from the "some people", just the people that know the "some people". Listen, let's get one thing straight, I'm not going to go into the whole "breastfeeding is natural and should be done anywhere" speech. What I am going to say is that I'd like to take anyone who has said that and have them sit in their house with an infant for two straight months without ever leaving. By the end of one week they will be begging for an hour at a restaurant even if they have to sit and breastfeed naked. Guys included. 

Finally, we come to my favorite. The "Yeah, I don't mind, I just feel bad seeing her naked boob." That is very nice of you, it definitely is. But I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be staring at her boobs anyway right? Is the baby in the way of you taking inventory on the boobs of the room?  Or you're only comfortable staring at my wife's boobs if they're covered by a shirt? Cause if you're not looking at her boobs in the first place, I'm *pretty sure* you won't see anything that you'll "feel bad about" when she's feeding the baby.

Anyway, I guess in closing I should say eeeeveryone relax. If you see a baby monkey or a puppy doing it, it's soooo cute, right? So don't overthink it, we all have to eat. And don't screw it up for me and make the wife stop cause I have to catch my 10th Sportscenter of the morning. Believe me, I'm screwed enough as it is when she goes back to work.

2 Mommys 2 Daddys and a Little Baby

Just to clarify my earlier posts, my daughter is "the caddie" when she is being a cooing, half-smiling, non-crying baby girl and "the CEO" when she is a fussing and/or screaming child who has had enough. But, when in thinking about this post, I can't really get a handle on which one she is. See, she is 5 weeks old and probably doesn't know her butt from her elbow. Actually that's not entirely true, she's got her butt covered (see previous post) but you get my point. What I've been noticing lately is that the CEO doesn't quite have a favorite employee yet. It's not Mommy or Daddy. It's not Nana or Papa or Grandpa or Grandma (I'm sure they all have theories otherwise but...). She's even too young to really know what a freakin toy is. We have dozens of cute soft stuffed animals and if one those dolls fed her, put her to bed,  changed her diaper, and never let her cry, she couldn't care less. That is, unless they were her new favorite Mom and Dad. Not the Mrs. and myself, but two things she clearly wishes were her Mom and Dad. The only things in the world (her 5 weeks of the world) that completely mesmerize her. She looks at these two things like she is watching The Matrix for the first time or like Dan Aykroyd stares at the painting of Vigo in Ghostbusters. For example, she was on my lap the other day, staring at her new favorite Mom for 25 minutes before she even noticed I was there. Then I got a look as if "Hey! Where did you come from? Sorry, I was hanging around with my favorite mom. You should see her, she's dreamy." So now to go over who her new mom and dad are. Mom is the venetian blinds in our living room and Dad is the the toy seahorse that plays music and his belly lights up (who we have lovingly named Carlos because, well, he looks like a Carlos). Nothing else in the world exists when either of these two other things are in the CEO's eyesight. I mean her eyesight is like 4 feet but STILL! So since I'm writing about the CEO, I figured it would be helpful for people to get to know her new favorite parents. Let's meet them now....

Carlos the Seahorse

Carlos is a purple fuzzy seahorse (fuzzy seahorse, who knew right?) Unlike normal seahorses he resides above water, has a wonderful singing voice that sounds like mechanical church music (which is not at all annoying when played on repeat for 30 minutes at a time) and a special light up belly. His main talent is stealing the affection of newborn children and embedding his haunting melodies into the brains of new parents.

The Venetian Blinds

Originally from Venice, Italy (at some point, right?) these blinds perform the special trick of letting some of the light come through the window, giving it a fascinating striped look worthy of much drooling and staring. They come in various colors and styles and will have the same effect on a newborn child that a topless woman would have at a Comicon convention.

Since the CEO enjoys spending most of her waking hours with her new parents, I've put together their first family picture. Enjoy, while I go learn how to get my belly to light up...

The Poop Dictionary

Today I need to talk about something critical in raising an infant: Poop. See, people who don't have babies (such as me in my pre-caddie days) think babies poop like we all do just softer. Now, being the "professional" dad of a five week old, I have found that not only are there different kinds of poops, but there are many different ways that our little poop launchers can dispense it. Everyone seems to use the term "blowout," which is far too vague, so I have created an easy to use index using my new caddie's future favorite sport. Here we go.

The Water Hazard

Although not actually poop, this mega pee diaper is certainly something all parents have to deal with. It's wet, unpleasant, and not really somewhere you want to be. Also, the water hazard diaper is freaking heavy. Like holding a bowling ball heavy. It defies the rules of science, since I'm *pretty sure* I changed a water hazard that actually weighed more than the kid.

The Divot

If baby poop can be pleasant (it can't), the Divot is it. A big swing (fart), resulting in only a small contained poop. Nice and easy to clean and replace with a new diaper. As you can see, we are easing into this.

The Slice/Hook

Sometimes they just can't keep it on the fairway, and depending on which side this occurs on, you have the Slice or the Hook. There are varying degrees of how far they can get the poop off the fairway. For example, my little poop monster caddie got some on her ankle the other day. I mean that's just plain impressive. I'm sure she was very proud. I know we were.

 The Shankapotomous

Sometimes it just all goes wrong. It doesn't go left, it doesn't go right, it goes straight up and it is not good. The Shankopotomous is when everything goes wrong. It shoots straight up the stomach AND up the back, possibly out of the sides too. It also somehow completely avoids the actual diaper. If you weren't so busy trying keep poop off everything in sight, it would be downright impressive.

The Charles Barkley

This is where it starts to get tricky. We all know about Charles' golf game. Well he's...... He's not good. If you haven't had the pleasure of watching his atrocious swing, you can see it here. You see, Chuck's got a big stop and go in his swing which not only looks like poop, it's just like the "stop and go" poop. It's pretty simple, goes something like this: big fart, small poop. Seems easy enough. Thinking it's a Divot, you do a quick diaper change and then boom, a huge Shankapotomous. Gets you every time.

The John Daly

Before being known for wearing crazy pants, Daly was known for an almost certain blow up. Like a walk off the course and hit the showers blow up and they were always epic. Just like the John Daly poop. You will know when this one hits. It covers *everything*. Diaper, baby, onesie, pants, changing table, you, your clothes, the couch, the dog, the baby's hair... Everything. You literally need to hit the showers when this one is done. For those who haven't had the priviledge of experiencing this yet, just imagine covering everything in sight with stinky dijon mustard. You're welcome. 

The Arnold Palmer

Besides being old and probably pretty close to wearing diapers of his own, an Arnold Palmer is also a delicious cocktail, which I am about to ruin for you. This poop is a hybrid. The scenerio is simple and starts with a nice, easy poop like a Divot. Then, as you are beginning to change the diaper, your baby surprises you with a spontaneous pee. The yellow hue of the fresh pee then mixes with the already established poop to create the perfect diaper Arnold Palmer. I had to put this one in because I didn't want to be the only one that can't ever drink one of those again. Misery loves company. 

I'm sure there are more that I don't even know about yet but the CEO is crying, I think she just had a Shankapotomous. 

Beer Helmets and Babies

So here we are, the long awaited (i.e. completely non awaited), first post from the new daddy. It's been four weeks since the new caddie/CEO has arrived and I have just mustered up enough saved sleep to jump into this (fyi, if you just read that last sentence you must have been one of the first few readers before my wife read this and immediately made me delete it since she breastfeeds and lets me sleep for the most part, thus making her infinitely more tired. But I digress). The last four weeks have been great. We are, however, still on the CEO's timetable. For instance, yesterday the CEO sent out a memo saying that no one will be sitting for the majority of the day, there will be much walking and swaying and a breast will be put in her face every hour on the hour. During one of my walking/swaying shifts, I made the critical mistake of reaching for something to eat out of the fridge.  I was immediately reprimanded by the CEO with a solid ten minutes of crying. Imagining how this situation is going to be when my wife goes back to work frightened the crap out of me. Like, I better get on an all smoothie diet or I'm going to end up Angelina Jolie at the Oscars skinny. So this needed to get figured out, now.  That's where I got my first "great" idea. My variation of the beer helmet. I got this idea where everyone gets great ideas: ridiculous college drinking gear obviously. How could no one have thought of this before (other than the fact that its stupid and has no real practical use)? The idea is simple: Just take a beer helmet, and adjust to your liking. Mine? Coffee on one side, milk on the other, and a bowl of Count Chocula in a bowl right on top. Breakfast of champions and a happy caddie in my arms. I think they should come in baby sizes as well now that I think about it. Just with tiny little nipples on the end of the straw. Genius.

I'd say me and the new caddie are going to hit the driving range but we just got a foot of snow so looks like I'll just snuggle her up next to me to watch some golf and try to explain to her why Tiger can't putt anymore.